The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

NATIONAL Security Minister Marvin Dames, who has responsibility for elections, said the competent authority will have to say how and whether people in quarantine can vote in the upcoming general election.

On Monday, Acting Parliamentary Commissioner Lavado Duncanson said the Parliamentary Elections Act allows people registered to vote to vote as a special voter in the advanced poll under certain circumstances, including illness or infirmity.

Such people would have to write to the Parliamentary Commissioner for a special voter certificate.

Mr Duncanson, nonetheless, did not specify how people in quarantine will be able to avail themselves of even this option. The advanced poll is on September 9, seven days before Election Day. It is conceivable people could be in quarantine during both events.

Mr Dames said yesterday: “If you’re quarantined, you probably going to have to take the necessary precautions, right? You have to vote, but if you’re quarantined that’s something the competent authority may have to address. That will be an issue that we will probably have to take up and be more specific on. Hopefully we will get some directions from the competent authority [about] how that will actually be. If you are quarantined then it means you have to stay in place.

“What I think as the minister is that we should all take steps to be safe. We’re dealing with a pandemic. There is a reason why you have a competent authority and there is a reason why you have orders in place to ensure that we’re all safe.”

Asked if people in quarantine won’t be allowed to vote, Mr Dames said: “No I didn’t say that.”

Asked how they would vote, he said: “I didn’t say that either. You should get some more clarity on that.

“At the end of the day, you know, we want to ensure at the end of the day that all Bahamians who are registered to vote are given an opportunity in some way. We have to accept therefore that there are some circumstances and times when that is not at all possible but that is a small minority of cases.”

Critics say this is a bad time to hold a general election, with healthcare resources depleted and COVID-19 cases surging.

“When is it a good time?” Mr Dames countered yesterday. “What is a good and bad time? Do we have some date or time as to when this pandemic will come to an end? According to some persons, this can go for the next few years, so what do we do, hold the election off for the next two years? Come May of next year, you think we’re going to be over this? [It] may be worse, right? We don’t know. There may be any number of variants out there.”