ABEC urges public to help identify persons on electoral list who die overseas

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front 7 electoral list
Dame Lorna Simon
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By Robert A. Emmanuel

[email protected]

The Antigua and Barbuda Electoral Commission (ABEC) has called on the public to assist in identifying persons who have died and need to be removed from the register of electors.

Deceased individuals being found on voters’ lists has been a major point of contention among political parties, with some supporters claiming people use the names of the deceased to vote in elections without any evidence.

According to Supervisor of Elections, Dame Lorna Simon, one of the major challenges that ABEC faces concerns Antiguans and Barbudans who die overseas, which makes accessing their death certificate more difficult.

Dame Lorna explained there was no automatic dissemination of information as it relates to identifying dead people on the register of electors.

“When the registration officer is made aware, whether by obituary on radio or television, there is a letter which goes to the Civil Registry and we obtain a copy of the death certificate,” she said.

The nation’s top elections officer noted, however, that deceased persons’ names on obituaries often do not reflect what is written on the official lists.

“One of the troubles we have sometimes is that the names on some of these programmes is different from what is on the register, but we say to persons, if you know someone has died and their name is there on the register, bring that information to us,” she explained.

She added that persons will always be on the register of electors who have died, however she rebuffed allegations that there were large numbers of deceased people on the voters’ list.

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