The Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) says it got le­gal ad­vice that in­di­cat­ed it was ‘ad­vis­able’ that ap­pli­cants de­clare whether they are a mem­ber of a po­lit­i­cal par­ty when ap­ply­ing for the post of Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cer.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment in re­sponse to re­cent me­dia re­ports on the is­sue, the EBC sought to clar­i­fy its po­si­tion on the se­lec­tion of Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cers.

“The Com­mis­sion would like to clar­i­fy that re­cent me­dia re­ports sug­gest­ing that the EBC is ask­ing Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cers to de­clare their po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance are mis­lead­ing and in­ac­cu­rate,” the EBC as­sert­ed.

In the state­ment, the EBC con­firmed that it had re­ceived al­le­ga­tions from var­i­ous po­lit­i­cal par­ties about Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cers be­ing mem­bers of po­lit­i­cal par­ties, which led to its seek­ing le­gal ad­vice on the is­sue.

“The Com­mis­sion sought le­gal ad­vice on re­quir­ing ap­pli­cants for the po­si­tion of Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cer to de­clare whether they are a mem­ber of a po­lit­i­cal par­ty,” the state­ment said.  “The le­gal opin­ion con­firmed that such an in­quiry is both ad­vis­able and law­ful.”

Ac­cord­ing to the EBC, the le­gal opin­ion:

“…dis­tin­guish­es be­tween de­clar­ing whether one is a mem­ber of a po­lit­i­cal par­ty and dis­clos­ing vot­ing pref­er­ences, which is pro­tect­ed by the prin­ci­ple of se­cret bal­lot. Mem­ber­ship in a po­lit­i­cal par­ty im­plies a lev­el of al­le­giance or af­fil­i­a­tion that could po­ten­tial­ly cre­ate the per­cep­tion of bias or ap­par­ent bias.”

The EBC re-stat­ed its com­mit­ment to “en­sur­ing that the elec­toral process is free, fair, and cred­i­ble.”

“The EBC em­pha­sizes its com­mit­ment to im­par­tial­i­ty and trans­paren­cy in the elec­toral process. Re­quir­ing ap­pli­cants to de­clare their mem­ber­ship is a proac­tive step to mit­i­gate po­ten­tial con­flicts of in­ter­est and main­tain pub­lic con­fi­dence in the elec­toral sys­tem,” the Com­mis­sion said.

The EBC re­vealed that the is­sue first came up dur­ing a work­shop ti­tled “En­hanc­ing Eth­i­cal and Ef­fec­tive Cov­er­age” on Tues­day (Au­gust 6, 2024).  At the work­shop, EBC Chair­man Mark Ramk­er­rysingh ad­dressed a ques­tion raised about po­ten­tial po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tions of Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cers.

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal leader of the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance, Gary Grif­fith, warns that the move pos­es sig­nif­i­cant risks to the con­sti­tu­tion­al rights of cit­i­zens.  He al­so points out there is a risk that in­di­vid­u­als could pro­vide false in­for­ma­tion.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment, Grif­fith says the EBC should in­stead fo­cus on re­forms that ad­dress elec­toral in­tegri­ty and en­sure im­par­tial­i­ty.