Con­cerns over changes to the elec­toral process to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) in­ter­nal elec­tions are be­ing raised by for­mer Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Karen Nunez-Tesheira, who in­tends to con­test the post of po­lit­i­cal leader.

In a let­ter ad­dressed to the chair­man of the PNM Elec­tions Su­per­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee, An­tho­ny Roberts, the po­lit­i­cal leader hope­ful has red-flagged plans to have vot­ing in the par­ty’s elec­tions take place over a three-day pe­ri­od—No­vem­ber 26 and 27 and De­cem­ber 4, 2022.

De­scrib­ing the change as “a mat­ter of grave con­cern,” Nunez-Tesheira, an at­tor­ney-at-law, seeks clar­i­fi­ca­tion on se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments for ear­ly bal­lots and the count­ing process for all bal­lots even­tu­al­ly cast.

She al­so rais­es the is­sue of reg­is­tra­tion of qual­i­fied vot­ers and cri­te­ria de­ter­min­ing who should be a vot­er.

Nunez-Tesheira said the vot­ing days of No­vem­ber 26 and 27 and a fi­nal date al­most a week lat­er on De­cem­ber 4 could cre­ate is­sues.

“This, in ef­fect, amounts to nine days, as the count­ing of the votes cast will not oc­cur un­til the fi­nal day set aside for vot­ing, as I un­der­stand it. While there is no ex­pressed by-law or rule stat­ing that the vot­ing process should be com­plet­ed in one day, it has been the prac­tice and cus­tom from the very in­cep­tion of the par­ty that the vot­ing would be so com­plet­ed and votes im­me­di­ate­ly count­ed in the pres­ence of ap­point­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives,” she said.

“Fur­ther, when one con­sid­ers that on­ly one day is set aside for vot­ing by hun­dreds of thou­sands of cit­i­zens in the gen­er­al elec­tions, as is the norm else­where, this new process be­comes even more baf­fling.”

She added, “One, there­fore, can­not help but ques­tion the rea­son­ing for this sig­nif­i­cant change, adding as it does, a lay­er of un­nec­es­sary com­plex­i­ty to the process, and more par­tic­u­lar­ly, an op­por­tu­ni­ty for ill-in­ten­tioned per­sons to tam­per with the box­es dur­ing what amounts to be a nine-day hia­tus.”

She al­so ques­tioned the arrange­ments for se­cur­ing the box­es.

Nunez-Tesheira is al­so con­cerned about the re­quire­ment re­gard­ing new reg­is­trants who wish to cast their votes in the elec­tions. She said she was told it was three months, but sought con­fir­ma­tion from one of the se­nior of­fi­cers at Balis­er House re­spon­si­ble for the vot­ing process and it ap­pears that there is no time frame in­volved.

She said, “In­stead, I was ad­vised that new ap­pli­ca­tions are sent to Balis­er House where the de­ci­sion is made as to who qual­i­fies or does not qual­i­fy as a reg­is­trant, for the pur­pose of be­ing added to the Fi­nal List of Vot­ers; that the process takes some time and is not com­plet­ed un­til the Fi­nal List is pub­lished by Balis­er House.”

The for­mer Fi­nance Min­is­ter un­der a Patrick Man­nign regime al­so ques­tioned the lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion about the elec­toral re­quire­ments.

She said, “Fi­nal­ly, what is the most wor­ri­some as­pect of this en­tire process is the lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and/or time­ly com­mu­ni­ca­tion as to the elec­toral re­quire­ments, in­clud­ing the avail­abil­i­ty and lo­ca­tions of the req­ui­site forms and the pub­li­ca­tion of clear and set­tled guide­lines for new reg­is­trants par­tic­i­pat­ing in this cur­rent in­ter­nal elec­tion.”

Nunez-Tesheira, added, “I there­fore re­spect­ful­ly call up­on the par­ty ex­ec­u­tive to re­vert to its time-ho­n­oured elec­toral process of one day of vot­ing and that the rel­e­vant vot­ing in­for­ma­tion be com­mu­ni­cat­ed and pub­lished in a time­ly and eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble man­ner.”

She said she is look­ing for­ward to the su­per­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee’s pub­lished re­sponse to the queries which she said, “can on­ly be ben­e­fi­cial to the PNM par­ty’s well-earned rep­u­ta­tion of ad­her­ence to struc­ture and ob­ser­vance of its rules as con­tained in its con­sti­tu­tion and by-laws.”