Verifying and Updating Voters Registries

. The day after the list is published it starts to become out of date

Procedures governing the verification

• Procedures governing the re-verification are as important as when the list was originally created

• Whatever safeguards that are required by law for the original compilation must be utilised during the verification

Jamaican Experience

• Population 2,500,000

• Voters register 1,400,000

• Sixty Constituencies (Parliamentary elections-every 5 yrs)

• 227 Local Govt. divisions-every 3 years

Data captured at registration

• Demographic information

• Photograph of elector

• All ten fingerprints (these are cross-matched on a AFIS to ensure uniqueness, i.e. no duplicates)

• A physical visit to the elector’s home to ensure presence in constituency

History of registration

• Up to 1997 full house to house registration

• Additional Permanent registration centers House to house entailed enumerators travelling to every single household to register persons eligible to vote

• List was discarded every 5 years and completely redone with these massive exercises

Continuous Registration

• Started in 1998

• Allowed eligible persons to register on their own accord at permanent registration center

• Great system for Adding electors but not very efficient at removal of the deceased or recording persons moving across constituencies and local govt divisions

Complaints

• By 2001 candidates started complaining that they could not find the electors in their constituencies

• Allegations that persons on the lists who could not be found never lived there and on election day would magically appear in the polling station

• The margin of victory in elections were getting smaller and there was considerable concern that the results of the election would be questioned as confidence in the list was falling

• Complaints were consistent across both major Political parties

Solution

• Reverify the voters list

• Walk the constituencies door to door with reps from both political parties and gather data on who still lived in the constituency

• Set guidelines on what would cause a name to be removed from the voters list

• All parties alowed to have observers to all aspects of the process

Results

• Approximately 250, 000 names removed from the list

• Net change after new registrants added during verification period – 125,000

Steps taken to protect elector from disenfranchisement

• Several visits to homes when electors not found

• Audit team to reveify the electors to be removed

• 2nd audit team if any one objected• Letter mailed to the elector to be removed

warning that name about to be removed• All 250,000 names published in the

national newspaper

Results

• Voters list more closely reflected the persons actually living in the constituencies

• Significant Reduction in complaints of candidates not finding constituent- most of those who did complain did so only after losing their seat

• Both major political parties felt the exercise was very necessary and praised the electoral system for handling a complicated exercise fairly well- there was some rethinking of this after the 2007 elections but only from the losing party