RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Chief Elec­tions Of­fi­cer Fern Nar­cis-Scope says the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion did its best to clear up lines at Gulf View Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre af­ter elec­tors com­plained they wait­ed for four hours to vote.

Speak­ing on CNC3 last night, Nar­cis-Scope said she was aware of the is­sue with one polling di­vi­sion but said it was caused by a high vot­er turnout and COVID-19 pro­to­cols.

She ex­plained that the EBC had warned that there would be de­lays be­cause of so­cial dis­tanc­ing but de­nied that peo­ple wait­ed for four hours to vote.

As the polls closed off at 6 pm yes­ter­day, more than 40 peo­ple from the Gulf View and Bel Air area were turned away from vot­ing. On­ly those who were near the polling di­vi­sion were al­lowed to vote.

At­tor­ney Jayan­ti Lutch­miedi­al and sub-agent for UNC can­di­date Sean Sobers said they were dis­ap­point­ed that the EBC did noth­ing to speed up the vot­ing process­es at the polling di­vi­sion, which housed three polling sta­tions. 

“About 40 peo­ple came and left af­ter wait­ing two hours. Many of them were old peo­ple. Since 7 am, we lodged a com­plaint about 3881 and 3880. These sta­tions are dif­fer­ent from oth­er polling sta­tions be­cause for some rea­son they were mov­ing very slow. We were en­ter­ing the polling sta­tion every half an hour be­cause, for an hour and a half, the line had not moved,” Lutch­me­di­al said. 

She said by mid­day, an at­tor­ney had writ­ten to Nar­cis-Scope but there was no re­sponse.

Con­trary to what Nar­cis-Scope said, Guardian Me­dia in­ter­viewed sev­er­al res­i­dents who said their vot­ing time took be­tween three hours to four hours.

Ravi Di­nanath said, “We have been here for four hours. We just fin­ished vote. In­side there were all kinds of ex­cus­es about why the line was slow.

“When we got there we saw noth­ing in­side to show why there was a holdup with the lines. I be­lieve this was a de­lib­er­ate at­tempt to stop peo­ple from vot­ing. It was pur­pose­ly done to frus­trate peo­ple.”

Busi­ness­man Ka­ma Ma­haraj said it was heart­break­ing to see old peo­ple wait­ing for so long.

He said, “Stand­ing here for so long and no fa­cil­i­ties. Peo­ple go­ing in one door. It is in­cred­i­ble. This is the ab­solute worse, 3,881 is 100 votes less than every oth­er polling sta­tion in­side there,” Ma­haraj said. 

Sobers, who ar­rived at the cen­tre dur­ing the course of the morn­ing, said the three polling sta­tions be­ing housed at that lo­ca­tion rep­re­sent­ed the UNC’s strong­hold sup­port­ers. 

“The EBC need­ed to in­ves­ti­gate the slow pace. Peo­ple still wait­ing three hours and lines are get­ting in­creas­ing­ly long. We do not un­der­stand what is go­ing on,” Sobers said.

He said the UNC will be tak­ing ac­tion af­ter the polls close to de­ter­mine why the vot­ing process was so long. Sobers not­ed that there was no ev­i­dence to in­di­cate that it was de­lib­er­ate but said, “it was def­i­nite­ly mis­man­age­ment.”