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Thursday, July 10, 2025

?EBC of­fices come up short...

?Voters rush to register

by

20100420

Long lines were no­ticed at many of the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion of­fices through­out Trinidad yes­ter­day.

Scores of dis­grun­tled po­ten­tial vot­ers went the of­fices to get them­selves reg­is­tered for the May 24 elec­tion. To­day is the last day to reg­is­ter as a vot­er. Yes­ter­day, the Guardian vis­it­ed the vot­er-reg­is­tra­tion of­fices in Tu­na­puna, Barataria, San Fer­nan­do and Ch­agua­nas where po­ten­tial vot­ers com­plained that more man­pow­er was need­ed to deal with the crowds or that the dead­line to reg­is­ter should be ex­tend­ed past to­day. Bren­da Ram­dass said she had been in line at the Tu­na­puna ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fice for most of the day and was ap­palled to see there was on­ly one clerk at the counter. She said: "This is not ser­vice. This is suf­fer­a­tion. More man­pow­er is need­ed."

She said a bet­ter sys­tem of cus­tomer ser­vice should have been put in place a long time ago to deal with vot­er-reg­is­tra­tion, not for just this elec­tion but for all in the past and the fu­ture. An­oth­er frus­trat­ed po­ten­tial vot­er, Rasheed Khan, said the ser­vice was ridicu­lous, see­ing that elec­tion was so close. Khan said he un­der­stood the EBC was in midst of train­ing more staff but felt more could have been done to ease the con­ges­tion. He said ei­ther more staff should had been de­ployed by the EBC or the dead­line for reg­is­tra­tion should have been ex­tend­ed. Khan al­so said lists of reg­is­tered vot­ers should had been post­ed at the EBC of­fices when the elec­tion date was an­nounced to avoid un­nec­es­sary line-ups. Elec­toral of­fi­cer at the Tu­na­puna reg­is­tra­tion of­fice De­vanand Dhan­paul said the turnout over the last two days was one of the biggest he had ever en­coun­tered. He did not com­ment on his staff's per­for­mance, but said they planned to deal with every­one who came in.

He said the prob­lem was that over the last two days a "large pool" of peo­ple came in to reg­is­ter all at once – over­whelm­ing their hu­man re­sources. Dhan­paul said they were aim­ing again to serve every­one, right down to a per­son who came in at 5.59 pm. The sit­u­a­tion at the Barataria of­fice was very much the same with peo­ple lin­ing up out­side the build­ing and around the cor­ner. Sa­lo­mi Crithon said she had been in line for more than four hours wait­ing for ser­vice. She said: "Bet­ter sys­tems should have been put in place be­fore hand to avoid this wait."Crithon and a few oth­ers com­plained that there was not enough staff to deal with the crowd. The crowd shared Crithon's opin­ion when she said: "More man­pow­er is need­ed to deal with the amount of peo­ple." Elec­toral of­fi­cer for the Barataria of­fice David May­ers said since reg­is­tra­tion be­gan last Mon­day about 300 peo­ple had come in­to the tiny of­fice to reg­is­ter.


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