Eligible voters urged to register at Ag show

| 09/02/2016 | 12 Comments

Cayman News Service(CNS): With more than four thousand people in the Cayman Islands entitled to vote but still not registered to do so, the supervisor of elections is urging potential voters to sign up at this year’s Agriculture Show on Wednesday. Given the recent political turmoil on the government benches and the PPM’s reduced majority after three MLAs crossed the floor, the premier has already warned that an election could happen sooner rather than later. 

Despite the availability of modern technology, it takes around three months for a new voter to be officially listed on the register, so Caymanians that are eligible are advised to take the necessary documents along because there may not be as much time as people think.

Agricultural Grounds Registration Drive – find out what you need to bring

Eligible but unregistered voters have been caught out before. In 2012 the UDP administration called a snap referendum in response to the campaign for ‘one man, one vote’ (OMOV) just a few months ahead of the general elections. The result was that unregistered voters were left with a very short window of opportunity to add their names to the electoral roll, which left many eligible voters unable to cast their vote in that referendum.

Since then, the PPM government has begun the process to reform the local political landscape, and provided the administration can continue with its reduced majority for the next 13 months, the next general election will be held in May 2017 on the basis of OMOV in single member constituencies.

However, if the government loses another member, the premier may call for the dissolution of parliament and an earlier poll, which could leave potential voters little time to make the roll, which currently consists of 18,271 voters.

Complete version of the 2016 Boundary Commission Report (which sets out the reformed political boundaries and the nineteen new constituencies)

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Category: Elections, Politics

Comments (12)

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  1. Anonymous says:

    Cant read or in northward whats the point? A wasted vote is just a wasted vote Like everything else in Cayman just a waste

  2. Anonymous says:

    You are playing right into the hands of those you despise. Get off your ass and be part of the solution.

  3. Ian Boxall JP says:

    The most common reason why people with Caymanian Status do not register to vote is that Grand Court jurors are selected exclusively from the voters’ lists.
    It is outrageous that someone who is Caymanian – by whatever method he or she became one – avoids this civic duty. It puts an unfair burden on those of us who are concerned enough to care who runs our country, and jury duty is a small price to pay for the privilege to be Caymanian. It should be a condition of having Status that the jury list should comprise Status holders, and perhaps also Permanent Residents. That way the pool would be so enlarged that a call for jury duty would happen very rarely.

    • Anonymous says:

      Civic duty? No thanks. Status is not about civic duties, it is about business advantages and being able to leave and come back more easily. I could think of nothing worse than having to sit through weeks of a trial of some local thug or fraudster.

    • Anonymous says:

      This is popular fiction. How does one explain unregistered Caymanian voters in the jury pool?

  4. Caymanian says:

    At 1:56 – quite to the contrary! We have a voice and we need to use it! LOUDLY! Voting is one way of doing just that! Not every politician is the same. While there are those who have sorely disappointed us and insulted us by telling us what they were going to do when they got elected when they were campaigning, then once they were elected…we now see their true colors. Rest assured that there are also those genuine Caymanians who really care about our people and the better good of the Cayman Islands. Therefore I encourage you not to give up hope! As for me and my entire family – we will be there to vote. Those in my family who are eligible to vote but are not yet registered, I have taken the initiative in assisting them with completing there forms (Form A on the Electoral website) and compiling the required documents to be submitted to the Elections office to ensure they are included on the list and eligible to vote come next election. We need a positive change and not voting can only make a negative impact. Do the right thing and VOTE!

  5. Anonymous says:

    I’m one of them and I will not be wasting my time registering to vote when I will not since it is always the same ppl running. PPM & UDP have both been useless. Don’t even bother mentioning the ones who claim to be independent.

    • Anonymous says:

      I too am one of those people and will register when there is someone worth voting for. I will vote for the first politician that cleans up corruption in the CS and Statutory Authorities.

      • SSM345 says:

        You have more chance with one of the Cows, Goats or Pigs at the Agricultural Show doing this than any of our elected “Leaders”.

    • Anonymous says:

      You should vote for the lesser evil…..

    • Anonymous says:

      The problem you run in to is when someone you like declares they will run and you find yourself not registered to vote. Then you’ll complain about the voting registration windows.

      Say, for example, Government called for new elections in April. (Thankfully that silly idea is now off the cards. Hopefully.) And you decided you wanted to vote. But you hadn’t registered in February. Well, you’d be out of luck.

      Remember, registration is not voting. If you don’t support any candidates then you can choose not to vote. But its a silly reason not to get registered.

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