Gail Alexan­der

False pub­li­ca­tions and posts, cloth­ing colours, al­leged vot­er in­tim­i­da­tion in North and can­vass­ing in South, “sur­vey tak­ers” —plus oth­er is­sues. Those were some of com­plaints dur­ing yes­ter­day’s vot­ing process. But it was an oth­er­wise safe flow de­spite long lines and COVID-19 re­stric­tions.

Vot­er turnout was heavy in some seats—in­clud­ing mar­gin­als La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro and San Fer­nan­do West—and po­lice had to en­force so­cial dis­tanc­ing pro­to­cols in some ar­eas.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith said up to 3.30 pm on­ly two mat­ters were in hand and no ex­treme prob­lems were re­port­ed. He said a com­plaint of al­leged in­tim­i­da­tion made by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ St Joseph unit was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

How­ev­er, Grif­fith frowned on the han­dling of a com­plaint which he said was cir­cu­lat­ed by UNC gen­er­al sec­re­tary Dev Tan­coo.

“It was a very ir­re­spon­si­ble let­ter which was said to be sent to me but which hasn’t reached me up to now though the whole coun­try knows about it. He made a se­ri­ous­ly reck­less false claim that po­lice de­lib­er­ate­ly tried to pre­vent peo­ple from vot­ing in St Au­gus­tine. Po­lice would have on­ly been at a lo­ca­tion to en­sure the law was fol­lowed,’’ Grif­fith added.

“In the lit­tle world of Mr Tan­coo, it may be that peo­ple have to rush around for elec­tions but the law ap­plies every day—in­clud­ing elec­tion day. He has my What­sApp and oth­er con­tact points, yet I haven’t got his let­ter though every­one’s heard of it. This says a lot about the in­tegri­ty of the in­di­vid­ual.’’

UNC PRO Ani­ta Haynes had ear­li­er said there were no prob­lems save long lines in Gulf View. Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment of­fi­cials didn’t re­ply to such queries.

The Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion was the first af­fect­ed by is­sues yes­ter­day fol­low­ing the dis­cov­ery of a so­cial me­dia pub­li­ca­tion and a post false­ly bear­ing its name.

At 5.51 am, the EBC had to quick­ly no­ti­fy vot­ers that Peo­ple’s Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty Diego Mar­tin North/East can­di­date Phillip Alexan­der was still a can­di­date af­ter a pub­li­ca­tion us­ing EBC’s name claimed he wasn’t. Alexan­der lat­er said peo­ple from a par­ty were try­ing to in­flu­ence vot­ers against him.

The EBC al­so had to ad­vise vot­ers that the elec­torate could wear any colour on poll day but per­sons wouldn’t be per­mit­ted in­to polling sta­tions wear­ing em­blems/lo­gos of po­lit­i­cal par­ties or with the words “Vote For” on cloth­ing.

That co­in­cid­ed with a re­port from UNC’s Point Fortin can­di­date Tarhaqa Obi­ka that an el­der­ly cou­ple was turned away by po­lice and not al­lowed to vote for wear­ing yel­low. They went home, changed and lat­er vot­ed.

In San Fer­nan­do West, there were many com­plaints about the length of vot­ing time at Gulf View Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre due to long lines.

PNM San Fer­nan­do West cam­paign man­ag­er Ter­rence Beepath al­so not­ed that sit­u­a­tion but added that his par­ty had to call po­lice and the re­turn­ing of­fi­cer to halt UNC can­vass­ing in the line by a known fe­male UNC sup­port­er. She was asked to leave.

The T&T Guardian al­so re­ceived a com­plaint that per­sons dressed in black were ask­ing peo­ple who they vot­ed for when they emerged from vot­ing sta­tions at La Ro­maine and Gulf View. They said they were work­ing “for a man to do a sur­vey.”

EBC com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Bob­bi Rogers said such query was il­le­gal. The Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Act, Chap. 2:01 Sec­tion 64 (3) (d) states no per­son shall di­rect­ly/in­di­rect­ly in­duce an elec­tor to dis­close to the name of the can­di­date/po­lit­i­cal par­ty for whom they have or have not vot­ed. EBC con­tact­ed po­lice on the mat­ter.

Mean­while, PNM’s St Joseph cam­paign man­ag­er Noel Gar­cia said his team found three cas­es of al­leged vot­er im­per­son­ation.

Gar­cia added, “At Aranguez North Sec­ondary school and the pri­ma­ry school, there, we found in­stances of peo­ple im­per­son­at­ing vot­ers to vote. In one in­stance, a per­son vot­ed twice at Aranguez North Sec­ondary school. 

“We re­port­ed it to the Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cers, EBC’s CEO and po­lice. UNC tried to in­tim­i­date vot­ers.”

UNC’s St Joseph team, how­ev­er, showed a re­ceipt for a po­lice re­port claim­ing Gar­cia at­tempt­ed to in­tim­i­date a fe­male sup­port­er at a UNC mock sta­tion.

UNC St Joseph team mem­bers al­so con­firmed can­di­date Ahloy Hunt stood his ground and re­fused to leave a Gand­hi Vedic polling sta­tion when an elec­tion of­fi­cer asked him to leave af­ter he was there “for two min­utes. ”

They said the al­lot­ted time un­der rules is 10 min­utes and he in­sist­ed on his right since there was an “ar­bi­trary ap­pli­ca­tion of the rules.” They said he re­turned lat­er and spent an­oth­er 10 min­utes in the sta­tion.

When the T&T Guardian called Hunt, he said it wasn’t a good time to talk. St Joseph cam­paign man­ag­er Neil Go­sein said he wasn’t aware but ac­cused the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer of “slow­ing down the vot­ing process.”

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Princes Town can­di­date Bar­ry Padarath yes­ter­day crit­i­cised the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) af­ter he said a per­son who was along­side him in the line at the Cou­va An­gli­can school faint­ed. He al­so said he took an hour to vote.

Padarath added, “The process was slow. In many in­stances, arrange­ment for the el­der­ly, dis­abled and oth­er vul­ner­a­ble weren’t in place. One of the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers of­fered to let me vote but I said I’d keep to my place and vote just like the oth­er elec­tors.

“If cer­tain stan­dards were ad­hered to, it didn’t hap­pen here. EBC had since the start of the year to pre­pare for an elec­tion com­ing this year but the sit­u­a­tion didn’t re­flect that,” he said, al­so not­ing rain and lack of cov­er for vot­ers in the line at Princes Town sta­tions.

UNC’s David Lee said com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres the EBC used in Pointe-a-Pierre for polling left much to be de­sired, pre­sent­ing dif­fi­cul­ties for vot­ers to use and to ac­cess.

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment St Joseph can­di­date Ter­rence Deyals­ingh al­so had to dis­miss al­leged so­cial me­dia rants by Anil Roberts yes­ter­day. He said there was no breach of COVID-19 pro­to­cols by his daugh­ter-in-law or spe­cial treat­ment for her.

Deyals­ingh said she at­tend­ed a wed­ding in To­ba­go but didn’t stay at the Tropik­ist Ho­tel, where a COVID-19 pos­i­tive pa­tient was con­firmed. He said she im­me­di­ate­ly went in­to self- iso­la­tion and has been there since Sun­day.

(Gail Alexan­der)