DIRECTOR of Elections Glasspole Brown says the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ) stands ready to conduct the Portland Eastern by-election once Prime Minister Andrew Holness announces a date.

Brown, in an interview with the Jamaica Observer yesterday, said EOJ remains in a constant state of readiness for the unexpected.

“We are always in ready mode. The prime minister can call it any time, so we are always ready. In terms of the renewal of voters’ identification card, it’s being discussed by the [Electoral Commission of Jamaica] and a decision will be taken shortly. We have started the processes of preparing for the renewal, but final details will be issued later on this year by the commission,” the EOJ head said.

His statement comes ahead of the looming by-election triggered by the death of People’s National Party (PNP) Member of Parliament for Portland Eastern Dr Lynvale Bloomfield earlier this month.

The second-term MP was found dead in his Passley Gardens home in the constituency on February 2 with more than 20 stab wounds. No one has been arrested for the killing.

Yesterday, the Observer reported that the PNP is expected to announce businessman and former St Andrew East Rural MP Damion Crawford as Bloomfield’s replacement for the party’s safe seat.

Crawford is expected to tussle with the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLPs) Ann Marie Vaz — wife of minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation and Portland Western MP Daryl Vaz — for the seat the PNP has steadily won for several years and which was last represented in Parliament by the JLP MP in 1980.

Bloomfield, sources indicate, would have been replaced as the party’s standard-bearer for the next parliamentary election though he won the February 2016 General Election by more than 2,000 votes.

In an interview with journalists after the slain MP’s funeral on Saturday, Crawford declined to comment on reports about his candidacy, but stated that the media would know the party’s representative at the appropriate time.

The PNP is expected to officially announce Crawford as candidate today at a press conference scheduled for 9:00 am at the party’s Old Hope Road headquarters in St Andrew.

Crawford, a vice-president of the party, was confirmed as the man last week after negotiations with the other shortlisted candidate, Dr Donald Rhodd, a former MP for the constituency, broke down.

Data from the EOJ’s website show that 34,396 were eligible to vote in the 2016 general election. Of that figure, 15,110 people voted.

However, it is not clear if that figure would maintain for the upcoming by-election as the special Elector Verification Exercise to update the voters’ list is scheduled for completion next month.

“So far this has been going good. We are now at the final part of the verification phase which should be completed by the end of March,” said Brown.

The ECJ announced in September the Elector Verification Exercise would accelerate the identification of registered voters and the removal from the voters’ list names of persons who have died since 1998.

More than 200,000 names are expected to be removed from the voters’ list with this exercise.

ECJ verifiers have been conducting islandwide house-to-house verification of electors, since November last year, visiting the homes of 1.1 million electors, 40 years and older, to collect information.

The cost for the by-election has not yet been determined.