The Antigua and Barbuda Electoral Commission (ABEC) has defended its decision to undertake a voter’s ID card replacement process, reversing its earlier decision to hold a full re-registration of the voters list in October.
Beginning August 12, around 40,000 persons will be required to renew their expired voter’s ID, following consultations with the major political parties.
This decision saw the main opposition United Progressive Party (UPP) objecting to the move and pushing their legal team to challenge ABEC on the issue.
However, during an appearance on Connecting with Dave Lester Payne on Tuesday, Supervisor of Elections Ian Hughes explained that undertaking a re-registration process would have been extremely costly, and would amount to nearly $9 million to execute compared to the simple renewal process which would set the government back around $2 million.
He added that re-registration would also include the entire 61,000 voters on the electoral list, including persons who are currently studying overseas.
“For example, our teenagers who are away in university—if we were to have a re registration exercise—their names will be expunged.
“However, they’re already registered and let us say, for argument’s sake, that there is a by-election in a particular constituency, you still need to get back into the state in order to register in order to meet the criteria.
“In this case, it’s not the six months residency, but your name must appear on that preliminary list, which goes through claims and objections again, so you would be disenfranchising persons without due cause,” Hughes said.
During a recent General Council meeting, the UPP voted to explore legal options against ABEC for what they considered was the Commission’s following the whim of the government.
However, the Supervisor of Elections acknowledged the opposition’s legal challenge of the decision, stating that legal challenges were a part of the democratic system, but stood by the Commission’s current position stating that it was rooted in law.
He also noted that the law currently does not require ABEC to undergo re-registration but speaks to renewal.
“[In 2010] the Parliament—the government at the time—determined that there needed to be a reregistration exercise because the eligibility criteria was changed [by the government]—we have no such condition at the moment,” he explained.
ABEC stressed that persons who are overseas or have loved ones overseas studying do not need to rush back home to Antigua for the renewal process as it would be an ongoing process, extending beyond August 12, 2024.
Both ABEC Public Relations Officer Elisa Graham and the Supervisor of Elections said that the reason for the August date was to ensure that as many people as possible could renew their voter’s ID card as the process would start closely following the 2024 Carnival period.