Renu­ka Singh

The pi­lot ini­tia­tive by the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) to test out an elec­tron­ic elec­tion man­age­ment pro­gramme in to­mor­row To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions yes­ter­day re­ceived two thumbs down from the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (PDP) and Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

PDP leader Wat­son Duke was in­vit­ed by the EBC to view the process yes­ter­day and re­fused to at­tend.

Both the PDP and the UNC sub­se­quent­ly reg­is­tered their ob­jec­tion to the test phase, say­ing that it could in­ter­fere with the elec­toral process de­spite re­as­sur­ances from the EBC that it did not in­ter­fere with the man­u­al vot­ing process.

In a me­dia re­lease post­ed to the PDP’s so­cial me­dia page yes­ter­day, the par­ty re­it­er­at­ed its ini­tial po­si­tion that it re­ject­ed the “in­tro­duc­tion of this new tech­nol­o­gy” for to­mor­row’s elec­tions.

“We be­lieve that it is care­less and high-hand­ed. Al­though the EBC should be an in­de­pen­dent body, its pub­lic per­cep­tion is one of bias,” the PDP said.

The par­ty said it had to pro­tect the in­tegri­ty of this elec­tion, es­pe­cial­ly as the Prime Min­is­ter re­fused their re­quest for in­ter­na­tion­al and in­de­pen­dent ob­servers to over­see it.

“The PDP can­not agree with the in­tro­duc­tion of the sys­tem at this time,” the par­ty said.

Sim­i­lar­ly, the UNC op­posed the use of the tech­nol­o­gy, say­ing in a me­dia re­lease that the par­ty sought to reg­is­ter its “strongest pos­si­ble ob­jec­tion to the EBC’s uni­lat­er­al pro­pos­al.”

“It is ab­solute­ly un­ac­cept­able for the EBC to pro­ceed with such an im­por­tant mea­sure, on the eve of an elec­tion no less, with­out con­sul­ta­tion with the of­fi­cial Op­po­si­tion,” the UNC said.

The UNC is not field­ing any can­di­date in To­ba­go for this elec­tion.

How­ev­er, it not­ed, “There can be no jus­ti­fi­able rea­son to ex­clude the Par­lia­men­tary Op­po­si­tion from dis­cus­sion of these new elec­toral process­es, which may be in­tro­duced through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

The UNC list­ed nine ma­jor con­cerns, in­clud­ing what da­ta was be­ing col­lect­ed, who was col­lect­ing it, the se­cu­ri­ty of the da­ta, who had ac­cess to it and how long it was go­ing to be stored. The UNC al­so called for an ur­gent meet­ing with the EBC.

Since last month, the EBC has been de­fend­ing al­le­ga­tions and ques­tions about the pro­posed elec­tron­ic process. It said then that the vot­ing process and pro­ce­dures be­ing utilised in all polling sta­tions in To­ba­go to­mor­row will be the same as in pre­vi­ous elec­tions.

The EBC said the new tech­nol­o­gy was to run par­al­lel to the ex­ist­ing method of vote tal­ly in two elec­toral dis­tricts and in no way was the tra­di­tion­al sys­tem be­ing re­placed.

The EBC said then that it ex­pect­ed the da­ta col­lect­ed in this project would give the com­mis­sion the abil­i­ty to gen­er­ate its post-elec­tion re­ports more ex­pe­di­tious­ly and would not change or in­ter­fere with the vot­ing process.

It plans to in­tro­duce the pi­lot project in the 13 polling sta­tions in the elec­toral dis­tricts of Scar­bor­ough/Mt Grace and Mt St George/Good­wood.