THE Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ) has indicated that staging four local government by-elections at the same time Jamaicans vote in a parliamentary election is a task that it is well-prepared to execute.

Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness on Sunday announced that when Jamaicans go to the polls for a general election on September 3, local government by-elections will also be held in the Chancery Hall, Olympic Gardens, Seiveright Gardens, and Denham Town divisions.

Since then Mayor of Kingston Andrew Swaby has warned that while it is all-clear for by-elections in three of the four divisions — Chancery Hall, Olympic Gardens, and Denham Town — it is not so clear for Seiveright Gardens.

According to Swaby, the sitting councillor for the Seiveright Gardens Division, Deputy Mayor Delroy Williams, is yet to submit his resignation and this has to be recorded in the minutes of the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation before a by-election can be held.

But despite this uncertainty Director of Elections Glasspole Brown has confirmed that the EOJ is in full preparation mode for the unprecedented move of staging local government by-elections at the same time as a general election.

According to Brown, the EOJ has experience of handling multiple elections on the same day.

He pointed to the direct election of the mayor of Portmore which, since 2003, has taken place at the same time as the election of councillors for the municipality.

“In Portmore, they have an election for the mayor, and they have one for the council [Portmore Municipal Corporation] at the same time. So we have enough knowledge in terms of how to manage that, to execute an election like that,” Brown told the Jamaica Observer on Monday.

He said preparation was already in full swing at the EOJ as they awaited the announcement of the election date as this year was already known to be the election year.

Brown added that further preparation would now start with the prime minister having announced the dates for the nomination of candidates and the election.

He told the Observer that the EOJ had already started recruiting election day workers and confirming the venues for polling stations.

“Now that the announcement has been made by the prime minister, we then move into another phase of the preparation, which we are going to embark on starting today (Monday). And that phase would include the printing of the ballots, which won’t start until after Nomination Day, because we don’t know which candidates are selected yet.

“And then finalising the Election Day workers’ list, finalising the arrangement for the polling station, nomination centres, all of that. That’s the phase now that we are in preparation,” said Brown.

He expressed confidence that on September 3, when Jamaicans gather to elect the nation’s next Government, all processes will run smoothly as the office would have completed the necessary arrangements to facilitate Jamaicans casting their vote.

“Our preparation is in an advanced stage, and when we complete the final preparation, then at that point I would say we are fully prepared and it should not be a major issue for us to execute,” declared Brown.