Tuesday, November 6 2007

THE ELECTIONS and Boundaries Commission (EBC ) said last night that preliminary results indicate the voter turnout was lower than 2002’s General Election.

In a very preliminary count, EBC communications manager Leslie Fitzpatrick said that while some outstanding ballots were still being counted at about 11.30 last night, it seemed that there was a 56 percent turnout of voters.

“If this holds then it is actually lower than the 2002 figure which stands at 69.64 percent,” Fitzpatrick added.

In 2002, some 609,571 people had cast their votes from a Revised Voters List of eligible voters of 875,260. The turn out for the two previous elections in 2000 and 2001 were also higher with 63.05 and 66.13 percent respectively.

Preliminary checks with the EBC also revealed that the People’s National Movement had up to 11 pm copped some 236, 420 voters, while the UNC Alliance received 103,247 votes and the Congress of the People had pulled in 119, 007.

Earlier, last night Fitzpatrick said that 990,352 people were eligible to vote according to the Revised List, and he admitted that several people had complained about their names not appearing on the voters list.

He said people had the responsibilty to themselves to check the list for their names, but what he had found yesterday was that several people who had left the country “temporarily,” or on “long vacations,” had failed to check for their names upon their return.

“I met quite a few of these people in the Western area,” he said, “who had complained about this. problem.”