EAC says no overseas voting
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Observer Reporter
Thursday, November 27, 2003
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THE Electoral Advisory Committee has rejected the idea of overseas voting, but has offered to facilitate bi-partisan talks on campaign financing.
EAC chairman, Professor Errol Miller said yesterday that the committee did not think that it could proceed with the proposal for overseas voting at this time. Independent member, Dorothy Pine-McClarty said that the proposal was, "fraught with insurmountable problems".
In terms of campaign financing, the committee proposed a bi-partisan task force, co-chaired by Prime Minister PJ Patterson and Opposition Leader Edward Seaga, and national consultations on how the matter should be approached.
Seven decisions, which came out of a retreat held last week by the committee, were yesterday revealed to the press at a briefing at the committee's Old Hope Road office in Kingston.
Other issues included government's 24-year delay in completing provisions for the EAC to become a commission; the implementation of Phase II of the electronic voter identification machinery; the conducting of residence re-verification in support of continuous registration; and legal reform, including legislation to facilitate physically disabled voters.
On the issue of campaign financing, Professor Miller said that the EAC felt that it could best serve "in a facilitating capacity" in the matter.
"We take note of the exchange of letters between the prime minister and the leader of the Opposition and our idea is that a task force should be co-chaired by both the prime minister and the leader of the Opposition. We will make our own recommendations with respect to its composition," Miller said.
He said that the committee wanted town meeting discussions across the country -- involving members of civil society, political representatives, and probably chaired by the custodes of each parish -- where the issues are discussed widely.
"After we have gathered the opinions from across the country, there should be some draft with respect to what should be the state of financing of political parties and campaign financing and probably a national consultation to come up with how we approach the matter," he added. He said that the EAC's role would simply be to facilitate the process, not to engage, at this time, in anything to do with the content of what is to be discussed or decided upon.
Speaking on the overseas voting issue Pine-McClarty, the committee's legal spokesperson, said that there were a number of questions that needed to be dealt with. These include matters of citizenship, marriage or descent, whether the person has ever lived in Jamaica, ownership of property and level of remittances, the cost of registration, tallying and counting the votes and what constituencies those votes should be attributed to.
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