PORTLAND, Jamaica — With just under two hours to go for voting in the Portland Eastern by-election, Director of Elections Glasspole Brown has expressed satisfaction with the day’s proceedings so far.

“It’s going very smooth and the turnout has been very good, much better than it was in 2016,” Brown told OBSERVER ONLINE.

“There have been some hiccups in terms of the slowness of some of the stations but this is because a number of persons have turned up without their voter’s ID.

“When that happens it creates a problem in terms of processing. The person who turns up with a voter’s ID is processed much faster than the person who doesn’t, because then you have to go through the process of taking the oath and doing the fingerprints,” added Brown.

He noted that with the polls set to close at 5:00 pm, the result should be available quickly but Brown would not commit himself to a time.

The People’s National Party’s Damion Crawford and the Jamaica Labour Party’s Ann-Marie Vaz are vying to fill the vacancy created in Parliament with the killing of Dr Lynvale Bloomfield in February.