Acting Parliamentary Registration Commissioner Arthur Taylor speaks with Tribune Chief Reporter Leandra Rolle at his office on January 28, 2025.
By LEANDRA ROLLE
Tribune Chief Reporter
lrolle@tribunemedia.net
ACTING Parliamentary Registration Commissioner Arthur Taylor said the department will ramp up preparations for the next general election next month and rejected claims that his institution was unprepared for the recent local government elections.
“Everybody now is at the point where they are ready to be going,” he said, adding that teams will be mobilised and sent to islands to verify voters.
He discussed his department’s general election plans with The Tribune and responded to criticism about last week’s elections.
Some Family Islands faced significant polling delays and ballot errors.
Even yesterday, in Grand Bahama, Deputy Chief Councillor Charlene Reid expressed disappointment over the postponement of the swearing-in ceremony for newly elected councillors on that island.
She said in a statement that the delay is yet another blemish on the local government election, which was held on January 23 in the Family Islands.
“The new act clearly states a timeline of two weeks for installation, yet this timeline has been disregarded,” she claimed.
Mr Taylor insisted that only three polling divisions –– in Bimini, Harbour Island, and North Eleuthera — encountered problems, which he primarily attributed to bad weather.
“In Bimini, there was a case where the weather deteriorated so badly that the box couldn’t go out, and it delayed the flights for a period of time. That ended up pushing the voting back a few hours,” he said, adding that Harbour Island also faced delays due to weather conditions.
He said ferries could not operate that morning and transport ballot boxes due to heavy fog.
He admitted ballot errors in polling divisions nine and ten in Governor’s Harbour, Eleuthera.
He said the department prints ballots locally, and officials only discovered some names were missing after they arrived on the island.
He said when alerted to the issue, he immediately arranged for the ballots to be reprinted. He said sending them to Governor’s Harbour from New Providence caused delays, leading to a late start.
“That was something that we should have caught,” he said. “We should have looked at it. We should have done our due diligence, but we were able to correct that almost immediately.”
He highlighted other administrative issues, such as concerns with supplies like dipping ink and challenges with presiding officers, but said these were not serious enough to close polling divisions.
He criticised those who commented negatively about the process in public.
He said he only learned about some concerns from the press, which he found disappointing since the department’s command centre was open on the election day.
“I’m disappointed that persons were using that to attack us that we weren’t ready, we weren’t prepared, we weren’t into this and that because my staff worked extra hard to do it properly, and we were planning this for almost three months ago,” he said.
He said out of over 100 voting polls, only three experienced major glitches that affected voting times, but there were no significant issues otherwise.
He said he is still waiting on writs from some islands to officially announce the results.
“The boxes got there on time,” he said. “Votes were cast, votes were counted, the results were given in, and we ain’t get all of them yet, but we got enough to be able to come to some conclusion. What’s the problem?”
He highlighted his track record.
“We know now we can’t deal with waiting the morning of the election to send a box out even a mile away,” he said. “The Harbour Island matter hopefully won’t happen, because if we pack early enough, we can get those boxes sent out two days in advance.”
Comments
bahamianson 2 weeks, 4 days ago
lol, who castes. It seems that no one can get us out of the economic slump we are in. Increase taxes, new taxes , more heinous crimes with no death penalty, freedom of information not used, no laws against political corruption and the list goes on. It is a waste of time to vote except you are politically affiliated and will gain some job or financial benefit.
K4C 2 weeks, 4 days ago
Yep time for change, lets change the PLP for the FNM and expect change
TalRussell 2 weeks, 4 days ago
Hoping the acting commissioner's readiness to get going’ on National Election' is not dependent upon the policemans' recruits who were dismissed after was found to have submitted forged admission documents. -- Then, the rejects, said be numbering in 3 to 6 range-were neither charged. nor sent packing but immediately transferred to work at the Parliamentary Registration Department, which is the electoral management body in charge of staging the upcoming National Election? -- Can't make this up, unless what news has reached meself, is untrue. -- Yes?
sheeprunner12 2 weeks, 3 days ago
Arthur Taylor has no clue about what he is doing.
He should resign, along with the Minister responsible for DOLG.
We cannot have our elections being run by a person with NO relevant experience, except been a PEP.
ExposedU2C 2 weeks, 3 days ago
The voter registers for New Providence and the more populated Family Islands have never been in a more appalling state with many dead voters, voters residing in the wrong constituency or in more than one constituency, voters with maiden rather than married last names, under age voters, non-Bahamian voters, and so on and so on.
The PLP like the FNM fail to understand the vital importance of keeping voter registers as up to date as possible on an ongoing basis not just on a rushed basis when an election rolls around. A change in a driver's license address, a change in a real property tax payer's address, a change in a Bahamian passport address, a change in name by marriage certificate, a death certificate, a change in a national insurance beneficiary's address, an application for a national insurance death benefit, etc., etc., etc., should all factor into keeping voter registers as complete and accurate as possible on a an ongoing basis.
A snap election or an election triggered by the need to replace any MP for whatever reason demands that all voter registers be kept as up to date as possible at all times. Arthur Taylor has no appreciation for the importance of voter registers being properly maintained on a current basis and lacks the ability to implement the measures necessary to do so.
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