Belizeans go to the polls in three weeks to vote in the general elections. And while the political parties have been busy on the campaign trail, the Elections and Boundaries Department has been consumed preparing for the seismic national event. Today the Chief Elections Officer Ruth Meighan in the company of the Director of Governance Myrtle Palacio and the police high command sat down with media representatives to update the press. Meighan says the voters' list is the priority.
Ruth Meighan, Chief Elections Officer
"We are very much prepared in terms of you know the general elections. Our major concern is to make sure that we have an accurate and credible voter's list. And so what I can say is that as of December we have a data base that has been audited, record card against name on voter's list, so that is up to date and so now we are going through the final phase of the January registration and that should be ready by the end of January, so you know well in advance for the general elections. We are actually very much prepared as far as prepared for that election."
Jacqueline Godwin,
I know there have been some concerns raised about the issues of polling stations being changed, when will the list of these polling stations and counting stations be ready and when will voters know where to go?
Ruth Meighan,
"Okay voters can know where to go, let me answer the first, the last question first. Voters can know where they will vote in terms of their division, they can know that now. The polling stations will become official after Nomination Day because that will be gazetted and that will be the official list. We have actually finalized that list as we speak today. We actually just finished it because we had to verify some areas and we have completed that so generally it should be ready by the end of this week and they could just call in at any of our offices and we can more or less give them an idea of where they should be voting.
Generally you go into the polling stations, if you have your ID, you present your ID or you could just if you don't you know why, you are allowed to vote without it, you call out your name, we verify that you are on the voters list, you go through the process. We have one election and two ballots because we now have the general election and the referendum. So you vote for the general election and then you cast that ballot, then you come back and you vote for the referendum and cast that ballot, that is the choice you have."
Jacqueline Godwin,
And these boxes will clearly be marked?
Ruth Meighan,
"Clearly differentiated. What we will have is, we have grey boxes those are the same ones we always use and we have some transparent boxes that will be used for the referendum. The grey boxes will be for the general elections and that will be clearly marked, it will say general elections ballot box and the transparent boxes will be marked as the referendum boxes."
A team from the Commonwealth Secretariat has been invited to observe the general elections, no word as yet as to when they are expected in the country but we do know that the group's arrival will be preceded by advance team. Meanwhile Elections and Boundaries have also prepared public service ads to sensitize the general public about the voting process.
As for the nomination day? Today the Elections and Boundaries announced that on the morning of Monday, January twenty first the People's United Party candidates will be nominated. The United Democratic Party candidates will be nominated in the afternoon. And a small note on counting ballots; the ballots for the elected senate will be counted after the general election ballots are counted.
