KE­JAN HAYNES

The EBC's Chief Elec­tion Of­fi­cer Fern Nar­cis-Scope says so far, all re­ports in­di­cate that vot­ing is run­ning smooth­ly. Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia around mid­day, she said all polling sta­tions would have opened on time, even though the turnout has been some­what slow.

How­ev­er, Nar­cis-Scope said there have been a few in­ci­dents of breach­ing the laws on elec­tion day.

"We un­der­stand that al­le­ga­tions have been made about a can­di­date can­vass­ing in the elec­toral dis­trict of Ve­ga de Oropouche, as well as a mo­tor­cade in the bor­ough of Ch­agua­nas," she ex­plained. "I've ad­vised per­sons [who] in­di­cate such that any­thing like that would fall un­der elec­tion of­fences.  Those things are to be re­port­ed to the po­lice."

The Chief Elec­tion Of­fi­cer al­so was in­ves­ti­gat­ing re­ports that some vot­ers were turned away be­cause of the colour of the clothes they were wear­ing.

"I think that is there some con­fu­sion with that in re­la­tion to the law," she ex­plained.  "Elec­tors can wear any colour to­day, once that colour they are wear­ing does not have any po­lit­i­cal para­pher­na­lia, brand­ing, on it, or the words 'vote for'. So, one can wear any colour."

In Princes Town, UNC MP Bar­ry Padarath said their le­gal team has con­tact­ed the EBC to ad­dress an is­sue at the Mara­bel­la South/Vista­bel­la seat. He com­plained about a pho­to on dis­play of show­ing Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley at the Vista­bel­la Re­gion­al Com­plex polling sta­tion. Pho­tos of the Prime Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter are com­mon at schools and com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres nor­mal­ly, and those are the build­ings be­ing used as vot­ing cen­tres.

"The EBC should have been more care­ful," Padarath told re­porters. "We have not been con­duct­ing these elec­tions since yes­ter­day, it's been decades since the EBC has been do­ing this, and year af­ter year, we con­tin­ue to see this chal­lenge."

Nar­cis-Scope said in those in­stances, pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers are usu­al­ly asked to take down such pho­tos.

"While we have use of these fa­cil­i­ties to­day, what we don't have is con­trol over them be­cause they do not fall nec­es­sar­i­ly with­in the re­mit of the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion. So, while they may cov­er them, [or] take [them] down, they would have to re­place them at the end of the ex­er­cise," she said.

She added: "I'm sure if that has been brought to the at­ten­tion of the re­turn­ing of­fi­cer for the re­spec­tive dis­trict, the re­turn­ing of­fi­cer would so ad­vise his or her pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers as to what ac­tion need­ed to take place there."