Gail Alexan­der

Mem­bers of the Peo­ple Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) who are vot­ing in Sun­day's in­ter­nal elec­tion should in­sist that a num­ber that's on their bal­lot book is re­moved be­fore it's put in the bal­lot box since that can iden­ti­fy who they vote for, claims Team Karen.

The PNM's Elec­tion Su­per­vi­so­ry Team must en­sure those num­bers are re­moved, says the Team.

The EST is ex­pect­ed to meet to­day to re­view last week­end's two days of vot­ing in PNM's in­ter­nal elec­tion.

The fi­nal vot­ing day is Sun­day.

EST head An­tho­ny Roberts didn't an­swer calls yes­ter­day on the re­cent vot­ing or of­fi­cial turnout num­bers to date.

Mem­bers of Team Karen, who are sup­port­ing of lead­er­ship can­di­date Karen Nunez-Tesheira, held a me­dia brief­ing on Mar­aval Road, Port-of -Spain yes­ter­day on the bal­lot book is­sue.

Nunez-Tesheira is chal­leng­ing in­cum­bent leader Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley.

Ken Butch­er is seek­ing chair­man­ship and Vic­tor Phillips, elec­tion of­fi­cer.

Phillps, speak­ing about the num­ber on the bal­lot book, said once some­one en­ters a polling sta­tion based on a num­ber as­signed to them, the num­ber is next to their name.

He claimed when one fin­ished in a vot­ing booth and put one's bal­lot book in the bal­lot box, that page of the bal­lot book (with the num­ber) should be torn out or the EST can see which bal­lot book Num­ber X vot­ed for.

"That's wrong and un­fair. Your vote is se­cret. What hap­pens to peo­ple who are cur­rent­ly wor­ried to death as they didn't vote for X or Y and they're won­der­ing if they'll be vic­timised,"

"We're ask­ing (EST) to re­move the num­ber from the bal­lot book be­fore you vote,"

Nunez- Tesheira - who re­cent­ly ost court ac­tion on the elec­tion- ex­pressed con­cern about the sys­tem, "As they open a box to count and call Num­ber X if the num­ber is there, they'll know who Num­ber X vot­ed for. That's not right."

"Don't vote un­less they re­move that num­ber from your bal­lot book/pham­phlet be­fore they put your de­ci­sion in the bal­lot box as that num­ber will tell them who you vot­ed for,"

"The dam­age has al­ready been done in re­cent vot­ing, but please in­sist when you go to vote on Sun­day that sheet with the num­ber as­signed is re­moved so no one will be able to vic­timise - or re­ward - any­body for vot­ing."

"We have to in­sist and en­sure the num­ber not be put on and should be de­stroyed as it's the mech­a­nism by which they'll be able to tell who vot­ed for whom."

Phillip said two mem­bers who vot­ed last Sun­day were “scared to death” as they had to leave the num­ber on the bal­lot book. He said they com­plained to the Bal­lot of­fi­cer but it had no Re­turn­ing of­fi­cer to re­port it to.