ST JAMES, Jamaica — An earlier hiccup at a polling centre inside St James Central appears to have been resolved, according to police called to the scene after some voters became upset at the long wait. Efforts to get a comment from the Returning Officer were unsuccessful but indications are that the gates to Lighthouse of Faith Ministries in Rosemount were briefly locked.

“I came because my team called. They said there was a little concern in terms of the gate being locked and preventing people from coming in,” People’s National Party (PNP) candidate Janice Allen told Observer Online.

“Having come here and spoken to the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ) representative, it is my understanding that there are three stations here, two of which are less active than one. And the information to the people who are here is that you can’t vote in any [random] station. Where you’re registered that’s where you have to vote,” she explained.

This is in keeping with voting procedure but according to Allen it did not go down well with some voters.

“The misunderstanding and miscommunication of things led to some of the voters getting a little upset and disgruntled and the gates were closed or locked but we were not going to allow it to be locked. So my team members intervened to ensure that people were allowed to come in,” she explained.

However Chris McCurdy, a part of the campaign team for Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) incumbent candidate, Heroy Clarke, painted a different picture. He described it as an internal EOJ issue.

“I was told by the EOJ rep that there was undue delays due to issues they were having on the inside,”
he said.

According to McCurdy the behaviour of Allen’s supporters caused matters to spiral.

“The EOJ were trying to resolve that issue by not allowing anybody else to come in so they had asked them to lock the gate. But what happened is that the candidate, Miss Janice Allen, her folks used their vehicle to block the gate,” he stated.

McCurdy said the behaviour was in line with what was seen during the campaign.