Charlestown, Nevis
January 28, 2008
The reconfirmation of registered voters would help to clean up the voters list Premier of Nevis, the Hon. Joseph Parry said.
The Premier who is also leader of the Nevis Reformation Party, made the statement last Friday January 25, 2008, during a briefing with the media at his Bath Plain office in Charlestown. He encouraged voters to make use of the ongoing reconfirmation exercise at the Electoral Office.
“I am glad that something has been done and we have been telling our people – the people of Nevis that they need to reconfirm. One of the good things about it is that it would clean up the list. There has been a problem with the list. From time to time we have seen people’s name appearing as people who are dead and it has been a problem for us.
“We have had several problems. One, to get the names of dead people off the list; two, persons from other countries that come here and leave, their names remain on the list and three, Nevisians who have not been voting for a number of years. So in spite of the many flaws that have been identified there are some positive things. I hope that it will help the elections to be fairer in the future. At least there is going to be an ID and that should in a way eliminate some people who may wish to vote in other people’s names or identities,” the Premier said.
The Electoral Reform legislation passed by the National Assembly in December 2007 mandated the issuance of a national identification card which would allow voters the right to vote in an election in St. Kitts and Nevis.
An order for the re registration of registered voters was issued by Prime Minister of the Federation, the Hon. Denzil Douglas. The process took take effect from December 27, 2007 and will end on September 30th 2008.