New voter list grows to 21,217

| 30/09/2019 | 23 Comments
Cayman News Service
Election staff load ballot boxes onto vans on Election Day 2017

(CNS): The electoral roll has grown by over one hundred new voters, the Elections Office said in a release confirming the new register of electors for 1 October. The new official list has reached 21,217 after 65 names were removed and 116 Caymanians registered before 1 July. The next list, which comes out in January, will close today and is likely to be the last chance those qualified to do so could make the roll in time to vote in the cruise port referendum.

This figure takes into account the additional voters and 65 individuals who have been removed due to death, incarceration or mental illness. The increase of 116 voters is more than double the 51 voters who were added to the list in July. 

The window of opportunity to register for the national vote on the cruise project, which is likely to be early in the New Year, closes Monday evening, even though some people believed that the register should have remained open a little longer, given that government is expected to announce a date for the national poll shortly.

The MLA for George Town Central, Kenneth Bryan, whose constituency would be home to the cruise berthing project if it went ahead, wrote to the Supervisor of Elections Wesley Howell asking for an extension to the timeline, but to no avail. Bryan said that some of his constituents had told him it was unfair because the petition itself was not formally verified until 11 September.

Even though there is now an expectation that the referendum is going to happen, no one knows when. Bryan said qualified Caymanians should be given more time to register because not everyone realises how long it takes after someone registers before their name appears on the roll.

“Though it may be seen by some that everyone had time to be registered, as the possibility of a referendum has been in the public domain for some time now, but it can only be expected that persons would want to be registered now that the referendum is certain,” Bryan said in a letter to Howell.

“With that in mind, under the principles of democracy, the public must be granted a reasonable amount of time to be able to register and participate in the upcoming referendum, whenever called by the Cabinet,” he added, as he asked for an extra 30 days for people to register.

However, there is no indication from the office that any extension will be made. As of tomorrow, anyone registering to vote will not appear on the register until 1 April and government has made it clear the vote will take place long before then.

The Elections Office also stated that individuals who are unsure if they are currently registered to vote to check their details on the Elections Office website here.

Anyone who has moved residence or changed names or occupation and has not informed the Elections Office is encouraged to do so by completing a form available on the Election Office website and submitting it to either the registering officer for your district or to the Elections Office. People who have been recently released from jail also need to re-register.

District registering officers have removed 185 voters who have passed away over the last 12 months but there may be others that the officers are unaware of, especially people who have died overseas, and they are asking people to contact the office if they know of people still on the list that have died.


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Category: Elections, Politics

Comments (23)

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  1. Anonymous says:

    Maybe with 21,000 voters, the court system could at last get 12-person juries.

  2. Anonymous says:

    So we really need 2 electoral registers. One with names of those who can run for office. Only commonwealth country with such distinction. UK FCO when will you fix this new era apartheid.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Too bad, this place would descend into civil war if naturalised expats joined forces with permit and PR holders against native Caymanians, and that’s exactly what they would do. It would be a further colonising of Cayman which would be totally unacceptable.

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      • Anonymous says:

        Further colonizing suggests we were colonized. We were not. We are, and always have been, British.

        • Anonymous says:

          We don’t know for sure who the first settlers were. We do know that in the late 1800s our system of self-government was greatly curtailed by the UK. Prior to that we had been neglected and left to our own devices, and we had been mixing with people from nearby islands and with slaves for generations. At the very least, what I am speaking about would be a displacement of those considered native Caymanians.

  3. Anonymous says:

    it certainly is nice to see more people exercising their right to democracy in this Country. The more that register, the better chances we have at getting this worthless Administration out of here and rid ourselves of their Third World mentality (the dump & public transport, single use plastics and lack of real environmental protections to name a few)!!

  4. Anonymous says:

    Now will Government require a greater margin to enable the referendum – retroactively??

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  5. Anonymous says:

    How can we be sure that this list is accurate?

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  6. Anonymous says:

    What if people on the list are not Caymanian?

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    • Anonymous says:

      How could that be? Don’t you need to show proof of status to register?

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      • Anonymous says:

        No, you do not. There are non Caymanians on the list, although some are people who were Caymanian and then automatically lost their status on their 18th birthday.

        • Anonymous says:

          Baloney. As a young resident, you don’t need to decide/apply to be Caymanian until you are 18. So you can’t automatically lose that label on your 18th birthday.

          • Anonymous says:

            If you are an expatriate under 18 when your parents become Caymanian, you can become Caymanian by entitlement. If you are Caymanian by entitlement you can get a stamp in your passport saying you are Caymanian. When you are 18 you lose your status and have to apply for continuation. Until you are granted continuation you are not Caymanian. There are hundreds of these “former” Caymanians.

      • Anonymous says:

        No.

    • BeaumontZodecloun says:

      Do you understand the process? A person must present themselves before an Election Office representative, with proper credentials to certify that they are Caymanian, or Caymanian Status Holder (which is the same in the eyes of the law) before they are registered as a voter.

      If a person lacks the credentials, they must obtain them before being a registered voter.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Yes! What if they are actually not people at all but amazing robots, registered not from West Bay but Westworld! I smell a conspiracy! I hope I have used enough exclamation points to make my point!!!

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