The Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress is push­ing for a meet­ing with the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter East­er, con­cern­ing pro­posed EBC changes for gen­er­al elec­tion con­stituen­cy bound­aries which could change vot­er num­bers in cer­tain con­stituen­cies.

This in­cludes the pro­posed ad­di­tion of 539 more elec­tors in Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment-held San Fer­nan­do West via polling di­vi­sion trans­fer and pro­posed shift of three polling di­vi­sions from PNM-held To­co/San­gre Grande to UNC-held Cu­mu­to Man­zanil­la.

UNC MP Dr Tim Gopeesingh, a mem­ber of UNC’s team con­cern­ing EBC mat­ters, con­firmed the sit­u­a­tion last Fri­day fol­low­ing con­cerns by Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar that bound­aries may be shift­ed for up­com­ing gen­er­al polls and oth­er pro­posed shifts in Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment ar­eas.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar had claimed bound­aries may be shift­ed, “favour­ing one par­ty over an­oth­er” and ex­pressed con­cern about EBC and an al­leged fake T&T ID card in the hands of a Venezue­lan na­tion­al. The EBC says it wel­comes any po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion and has point­ed out its con­sti­tu­tion­al du­ty to re­view bound­aries.

Op­po­si­tion con­cerns are based on two re­ports done by the EBC on prepa­ra­tions for both gen­er­al and LG polls.

Un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, sub­sec­tion 72(1), the EBC is re­quired to re­view the num­ber of bound­aries and con­stituen­cies in­to which Trinidad and To­ba­go is di­vid­ed, for the pur­pose of gen­er­al elec­tions and sub­mit rec­om­men­da­tions to Par­lia­ment. On March 29, the EBC sub­mit­ted that re­port (dat­ed March 14) on the Re­view of the Con­stituen­cy Bound­aries. It was al­so pre­sent­ed to the Prime Min­is­ter and House Speak­er.

The Con­stituen­cy Bound­aries re­port rec­om­mend­ed changes in 12 con­stituen­cies in Trinidad: in five UNC-held seats and in sev­en PNM-held seats.

Sub­se­quent­ly, on April 5, the EBC sub­mit­ted its Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment draft or­der for hold­ing of LG elec­tions. The or­der rec­om­mend­ed changes in sev­en cor­po­ra­tions: three held by PNM and four by UNC.

Both re­ports are on Par­lia­ment’s web­site. Last Fri­day, EBC of­fi­cials stressed to the T&T Guardian that rec­om­mend­ed changes in both re­ports are on­ly “pro­posed” and both re­ports are sub­ject to Par­lia­men­tary de­bate be­fore any­thing is ap­proved. EBC’s for­mu­la for bound­ary changes and oth­er ad­just­ments in both re­ports is al­so stat­ed in the re­ports.

How­ev­er, Gopeesingh said the UNC’s team had planned to have a meet­ing with the EBC last week to dis­cuss its con­cerns, but UNC was told the week be­fore that EBC chair­man Nor­bert Mas­son would have been over­seas.

“But we’ll seek the meet­ing as pri­or­i­ty soon as East­er’s over,” Gopeesingh said,

“What we’ve seen in pro­posed changes is very se­ri­ous, par­tic­u­lar­ly con­sid­er­ing al­leged ger­ry­man­der­ing and past ‘vot­er padding’ talk. The con­stituen­cy bound­ary re­port rec­om­mends changes, in­clud­ing some which move strong PNM polling di­vi­sions in­to mar­gin­al seats, strength­en­ing it for them and weak­en­ing UNC polling di­vi­sions. There are nine polling di­vi­sions we’re par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerned about. We’ll seek specifics on why changes are pro­posed.”

The UNC al­so in­tends to raise with the EBC, con­cerns about the vot­er reg­is­tra­tion process, “... Par­tic­u­lar­ly the like­li­hood of Venezue­lan or Cari­com na­tion­als - in­el­i­gi­ble to vote - get­ting on the list, how EBC em­ploy­ees will go about reg­is­tra­tion and sys­tem strengths to guard against prob­lems.”

The EBC’s gen­er­al elec­tion Con­stituen­cy Bound­ary re­port didn’t rec­om­mend changes in 27 con­stituen­cies in Trinidad and the two To­ba­go seats.

But EBC’s rec­om­men­da­tions con­cern al­ter­ation of bound­aries of 12 Trinidad con­stituen­cies: Cou­va North, Cou­va South, Cu­mu­to Man­zanil­la, Laven­tille East/Mor­vant, Laven­tille West, Oropouche East, Oropouche West, Port-of Spain North/St Ann’s, PoS South, San Fer­nan­do East, San Fer­nan­do West and To­co San­gre Grande.

The EBC’s re­port stat­ed its da­ta shows the dis­tri­b­u­tion of T&T’s elec­torate re­vealed that Cou­va North and To­co/San­gre Grande fall above the Per­mis­si­ble Up­per Lim­it.

Four con­stituen­cies mean­while fall be­low the Per­mis­si­ble Low­er Lim­it: Port-of-Spain North/St. Ann’s West, Port-of-Spain South, San Fer­nan­do West and Oropouche West.

The EBC said the ad­just­ments pro­posed re­sult­ed in a change of con­fig­u­ra­tion in the 12 con­stituen­cies. These in­clude the six pre­vi­ous­ly iden­ti­fied as falling out­side the Per­mis­si­ble Lim­its, as well as six in­to which or from which polling di­vi­sions were added or re­moved.

The EBC’s rules guid­ing con­stituen­cy size in­clude that the elec­torate “shall so far as is prac­ti­ca­ble be equal in all con­stituen­cies.”

Al­so, that the elec­torate in any con­stituen­cy “shall not be more than one hun­dred and ten per cent nor be less than nine­ty per cent of the to­tal elec­torate of the is­land di­vid­ed by the num­ber of con­stituen­cies in that is­land.”

How pro­posed EBC changes could af­fect vot­er num­bers

COU­VA NORTH

Polling Di­vi­sions 3151 and 3152, with elec­torates of 463 and 358 re­spec­tive­ly, were trans­ferred to Cou­va South, there­by re­duc­ing Cou­va North's elec­torate to 29,545 and the num­ber of polling di­vi­sions to 37. Col­lat­er­al­ly, Cou­va South's elec­torate was in­creased to 30,074, which is be­low the Per­mis­si­ble Up­per Lim­it. Cor­re­spond­ing­ly, the num­ber of polling di­vi­sions in Cou­va South was in­creased by two to 43

OROPOUCHE WEST

Polling Di­vi­sion 3795, with an elec­torate of 513, was trans­ferred to this con­stituen­cy from Oropouche East, there­by in­creas­ing Oropouche West's elec­torate to 25,144 and in­creas­ing the num­ber of polling di­vi­sions to 33. Col­lat­er­al­ly, Oropouche East's elec­torate was re­duced to 27,772 which is be­low the Per­mis­si­ble Up­per Lim­it. Cor­re­spond­ing­ly, the num­ber of Polling Di­vi­sions in Oropouche East was re­duced by one to 35.

PORT-OF-SPAIN NORTH/ST ANN'S WEST

Elec­torate: 24,230 - be­low Per­mis­si­ble Low­er Lim­it.

Orig­i­nal Num­ber of Polling Di­vi­sions: 59

Ad­just­ments: Polling Di­vi­sions 0670 and0680, with elec­torates of 203 and 207 re­spec­tive­ly, were trans­ferred to this con­stituen­cy from Port-of-Spain South. Al­so trans­ferred to this con­stituen­cy from Laven­tille West was Polling Di­vi­sion 0705 with an elec­torate of 356. Con­se­quent­ly, PoS North's elec­torate was in­creased to 24,996 and the num­ber of polling di­vi­sions there­in to 62.

PORT-OF-SPAIN SOUTH

Elec­torate: 23,530 - be­low Per­mis­si­ble Low­er Lim­it.

Orig­i­nal num­ber of polling di­vi­sions: 64

Ad­just­ments: PoS South Polling Di­vi­sions 0670 and 0680, with elec­torates of 203 and 207 re­spec­tive­ly, were trans­ferred to PoS North. Next, Polling Di­vi­sion 1270 in Laven­tille West, with an elec­torate of 1,776, was trans­ferred to the con­stituen­cy of PoS South. Con­se­quent­ly, the elec­torate in PoS South was in­creased to 24,896 and the num­ber of polling di­vi­sions re­duced to 63. Fur­ther, Polling Di­vi­sion 1294, with an elec­torate of 1,360, was trans­ferred from Laven­tille East/Mor­vant to Laven­tille West. This re­sult­ed in a re­duc­tion of the elec­torate in Laven­tille East/Mor­vant to 26,647, and the num­ber of polling di­vi­sions there­in to 36.

SAN FER­NAN­DO WEST

Elec­torate: 24,399 - be­low Per­mis­si­ble Low­er Lim­it.

Orig­i­nal num­ber of polling di­vi­sions: 57

Ad­just­ments: Polling Di­vi­sions 4190 and 4195 in San Fer­nan­do East, with elec­torates of 343 and 196 re­spec­tive­ly, were trans­ferred to SF West; there­by in­creas­ing the elec­torate in SF West to 24,938 and the num­ber of polling di­vi­sions to 59. As a con­se­quence, the elec­torate in the con­stituen­cy of San Fer­nan­do East de­creased to 24,903 and the num­ber of polling di­vi­sions to 43.

TO­CO/SAN­GRE GRANDE

Elec­torate: 31,599 - above Per­mis­si­ble Up­per Lim­it.

Orig­i­nal num­ber of polling di­vi­sions: 41

Ad­just­ments: Polling Di­vi­sions 2245, 2246 and 2252 in the con­stituen­cy of To­co/San­gre Grande, with elec­torates of 586, 386 and 540 re­spec­tive­ly, were trans­ferred to Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la; there­by re­duc­ing the elec­torate in To­co/San­gre Grande to 30,087 and the num­ber of polling di­vi­sions to 38. Col­lat­er­al­ly, the elec­torate in Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la was in­creased to 30,189, while the num­ber of polling di­vi­sions in­creased to 54.

T&T Elec­torate in­creas­es in last year

In the EBC's March re­view on con­stituen­cies, it was not­ed that at De­cem­ber 4, 2018, T&T's elec­torate stood at 1,124,151.

Of these, 1,074,224 were reg­is­tered to vote in Trinidad; with the re­main­ing 49,927 be­ing el­i­gi­ble to vote in To­ba­go.

The an­nu­al list of elec­tors pub­lished on Ju­ly 1, 2018, con­tained 1,120,631 names of reg­is­tered elec­tors.

The EBC's re­cent­ly re­leased Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment draft or­der rec­om­mend­ed changes of bound­aries in sev­en Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment cor­po­ra­tion ar­eas, the cre­ation of ad­di­tion­al new elec­toral dis­tricts in two ar­eas and name changes in three oth­ers. At Mon­day's UNC Fo­rum Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firmed those changes will af­fect some UNC coun­cil­lors, in­clud­ing in El So­cor­ro, San Juan.