Deceased voters to be removed from roll
(CNS): Government made only two concessions during the committee stage amendments to its proposed Referendum Bill Wednesday, before the legislation was passed by members. The premier made one amendment to the draft law, paving the way for the supervisor of elections to remove the names on the current register of voters who have died before setting the threshold of votes for the referendum to be binding. A second amendment dealt with a technical concern over the order of the process.
Despite the long list of concerns and the potential legal jeopardy that the bill poses, as outlined in a legal opinion sought by the CPR group and published at the weekend, the government made no other concessions.
While the amendment to remove those who are still on the list but have since died was broadly welcome, as that could have seen at least 45 dead voters be counted as ‘yes’ votes, there were few other material changes to the proposed bill.
Premier Alden McLaughlin accepted that the issue of setting the question in the law before the referendum law had been passed could be perceived as procedurally incorrect, as noted by the UK Lawyer, he moved several amendments taking the question directly from the bill. He explained that the ballot paper and formal establishment of the question would now be made in the regulations by Cabinet. He also made it clear that the wording of that question was unlikely to change.
However, a catalogue of other issues, including the date, the disenfranchisement of voters, the decision to allow the sale of liquor on voting day and the significant absence of any campaign finance rules, were not addressed.
While CPR had welcomed the plan to address the procedural flaw in the order the legislation and the question were being created, hopes that they would go further were thwarted.
In a statement before the committee was held to deal with the amendments a spokesperson for CPR said that they were pleased government had accepted in part Helen Mountfield QC’s advice that parts of the legislation were flawed.
But they said it was “unfortunate” government spent so much time during the debate “making personal attacks and defending the controversial project, rather than addressing the content, and potential weaknesses of the Referendum Bill”. The campaigners said they hoped government would be willing to make more changes to “correct the serious flaws” to deliver a law that was “fair, lawful and in keeping with the spirit of section 70 of our constitution”.
However, McLaughlin made no further concessions, leaving CPR with the decision now on whether or not it will proceed with a legal challenge.
The committee stage stirred up even more contention, as opposition members queried the way government was adopting parts of the Elections Law in a way that would enable Cabinet, if it wanted, to make substantial changes to the law without any parliamentary oversight. However, no opposition members tabled any amendments, as opposition members had had little opportunity to do that.
See committee proceedings below:
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Category: Politics
Legitimately, there are dozens, and perhaps hundreds, of registered Caymanian voters who have permanently emigrated elsewhere over the years, and have not resided in the Cayman Islands for 5-10-15 years or more, and no longer own Cayman Islands property. At what point are those voter rights stripped away? How does the Elections Office reconcile these “fare-thee-well” Caymanians? Do those émigrés even know there is an upcoming Referendum that they can still (mistakenly or not) vote on?!? What effort is made to advise them of the existence and topic of the Referendum, or process on how to apply for postal ballot? Questions, questions…for Mr Howell.
Hence the reason the vote is not democratic, he encourages people to merely stay home and why he says CPR will need a miracle.
If someone ‘in charge’ does not see this as undemocratic and does nothing to fix it then don’t nobody better say we are not an island full of corruption.
Q. Just out of curiosity, in what other country, where international observers are present to supervise (like IEC), are “no-show” voters counted as affirmatives? Is there any other place on Earth, in the modern era, where this reproachable practice would be considered permissible, let alone gazetted from Bill into Law? What are the names of those countries that this regime strives to emulate?
Are persons who have their status revoked removed from the list? Do they still count?
Wait, do we really want to do this? Considering who is currently in the LA, I don’t have any faith in living voters. The dead would likely vote more sensibly in the next election. Let’s keep ‘em!
#lame
Can we also remove from the list persons who are known habitual ganja smokers?
Why?
Because ganja is illegal and alcohol is not…
If wearing striped clothing was illegal I’d purposely break that law too. It’s 2019 – Mexico, Canada and half of the USA is legal.
Cannabis is safer than alcohol and tobacco. Anyone telling you otherwise bought into the propaganda and lobbying against cannabis by big pharma, alcohol, paper and tobacco industries.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Remember that.
What about the habitual drunks, wife beaters and adulterers?
Leave out legislators out of this!
Wow, man, your post is really …. what were we talking about again?
You really sat and commented this? Pretty sure they’d still vote no
Aren’t Elections Officials supposed to remove deceased people automatically? Isn’t that the whole reason for maintaining a skeletal office during the off-season?!?
No, the reason for that is keep salaries flowing between elections for the skeletal office including the supervisor and three deputies. In fact all four of them are double dipping as the supervisor Wesley Howell is CO in the Premier’s ministry, Suzanne Bothwell is Court Administrator, Sheena Glasgow is Postmaster General and Ernie Scott is District Commissioner. Just Cayman civil service gravy train business as usual
Great work if you can get it.
God bless Suzanne.
But that’s not how it works. There is an application with photocopied proof stapled to it, vetted against Immigration records, and then those approved are Gazetted quarterly. Nobody walks in and out with a voter’s card or adds themselves to the official elector list by deception/misrepresentation, or in just 10 minutes time. It takes months to be added.
But is that not how it used to work?
The department of immigration does not accept voters registration cards as proof that anyone is Caymanian (and nor should they). Does that not tell you something?
That makes sense. The Immigration record is the master file that matters in the Cayman Islands. eg. You can’t get a voter’s registration card unless you have been vetted against confirming Immigration records. That includes proof of having applied for continuance as a Caymanian at 18 and submitting resulting confirmation of continuance from DoI to Elections Office in order to register for subsequent Gazetting. Then, months later, once you’re added to the official list, you can go and have a voter card issued. Ask me how I know.
How do you know?
Does immigration have an accurate list of all Caymanians? If so, why do acknowledgement applications take so long and require so much documentation if immigration already knows?
sad isn’t ?
As you can see by the comments brain dead does not count as dead.
Why isn’t the referendum based on who actually votes. So how many say yes get yes and how many say no get no. The ones who don’t vote should not be valid at all.
Great idea but will only work in a place where common sense is more evident than ignorance.
That fact that it took a motion of law to remove the dead from the voting list shows just how backwards and possibly corrupt the government of Cayman is.
if you do not count dead persons who are not going to vote why count those persons who are alive and don’t cast a vote? What’s the difference?
Under our crazy system not turning up to vote will in effect be counted as voting yes. Since dead people would be voting for the port (Halloween or not) it is important that their names not be on the register.
Something tells me that if CPR didn’t request this nothing would be done and they would be left on the list.. as for why they need to be removed. People who don’t turn up to vote for some stupid reason are counted as a “yes” to the port which is insane.
And Roper would have been fine with it and declared how free and fair our referendum was. The lunatics now run the asylum.
It was decided on in the dead of the night.
Vote No
This government has now passed a bill preventing a constituency by constituency count for no reason other than to stop his backbench from rebelling and killing the project when they realize they will be voted out if they support the project
This government has now passed a bill for a referendum with no campaign finance regulations meaning that people on both sides can spend an unlimited amount in the next 6 weeks on this referendum
This government has now passed a bill for a referendum while allowing establishments to continue to sell liquor which is usually illegal while polls are open to prevent or at least mitigate the potential of disorderly conduct in polling areas, and accidents on roads delaying or preventing persons from going to their polling locations
Imagine if there is a fatal accident on the road during the election day or the night before
There is a reason why this has been standard in a country where a fatal accident could mean road closures and delays for hours
This government has now passed a bill that puts the election days before a new register of electors would be put in to place and thus preventing hundreds of newly registered Caymanians from being able to vote
This point is particularly poignant seeing as the completion of the verification and thus the official declaration that a referendum would be occurring took place after the deadline to be registered to vote during this year
If you wanted to be on the list for this year you would have had to register by July, the vote was not announced until September
The people who recently registered to vote were not late or irresponsible, they registered as soon as they knew there would ACTUALLY be a vote and they are being prevented by this government
There is no reason we cannot set the cutoff date for registration for elections as a week or 2 weeks prior to the date and have a list that is updated monthly
This is outright voter suppression by people claiming to be representatives of the people
The preliminary data already exists. The Petition was confirmed by all sides. It included voter ID number. Import that to Excel, and sort by 2-3 character electoral district prefix and there’s the warning shot for all the nervous Unity shills.
What really bothers me is that Alden didn’t see anything wrong with this until he was pressured to change it…
Almost seems like they would do anything to ensure their votes, up to and including the dead to vote…
Why would you remove dead voters from the list? Lmao oh boy
Dead persons should stand for Exco. That would increase the average IQ.
I’m dead against this change.
Drop dead.
You are dead to me.
Better dead than PPM red.
lol..Alden knew that he couldn’t fight that one..Did he really think he could get away with dead people voting for him…What an a$$!
What about any non Caymanians “accidentally” on the electoral roll? Do they count, or not?
they can be challenged..
How? Do objectors get to see the information they need to determine whether someone is Caymanian or not? Are scans of the paperwork provided to supposedly support the contention that someone is Caymanian available for public scrutiny?
Admitting that you don’t know who is who, how are you then qualified to pretend to be an arbiter of who is and is not Caymanian? Just cause you are unqualified, doesn’t give you the high-horse to assume everyone else is conducting themselves unprofessionally.
Compare the checklist historically used by the elections office to determine who is Caymanian to the immigration law, and you might see some inconsistency. Just sayin.
If they exist, which I honestly doubt.
Dont be stupid. Have you any idea of how many back checks and documents you need to show in order to get put on the electoral role? Non-caymanians cant vote plain and simple.
That’s what the law says, but that is not always what happens, plain and simple.
Please provide proof. Im waiting
See 8.48am.
Those arent facts. I was born here but im technically first generation Caymanian (I applied for and got status when i was 18). I remember the process that was required to become a voter and it was long and tedious and involved allot of proof of status paperwork. what you list arent cold facts.
See debunking reply to 8:48 as well.
Check your pudding.
Go watch more FOX News and stop spreading nincompoopery.
Here are some facts:
Persons born in Cayman are not necessarily Caymanian.
Persons with Cayman passports are not necessarily Caymanian.
Persons with Caymanian parents are not necessarily Caymanian.
Persons who are Caymanian as a child do not necessarily remain Caymanian when they become an adult.
Not everyone in the elections office with responsibility for registering electors appears to have consistently applied these facts in the past.
The result is that there are probably persons who are not Caymanian who are registered to vote.
You absolutely are Caymanian if you’re born here and grow up here. How do you figure you would not be?
Ummm, the law?
You just demonstrated the issue. There have been persons in the elections office who agree with you. The problem is that the law says something different.
If you are born in Cayman with Cayman parents then you are Caymanian. If you do not have Caymanian parents and you were born in Cayman then you are the nationality of your parents.
Not necessarily on the first part. Your parents would also need to be settled in Cayman at the date of your birth for you to automatically be Caymanian at the date of your birth. Not necessarily on the second part either. If your parents are not Caymanian, but have Permanent Residence, then you will be born with a Cayman Passport, but not be Caymanian. Complicated, eh?
Not necessarily the case, …
I agree that the first four statements are facts. Your own qualifying words “appears to” automatically disqualifies that statement as a “fact” – it might be true, it might not be, but it’s not a “fact.” Since your whole argument “result” requires statement #5 to be a fact, and it’s not, then your whole post is rubbish. Nice try, but you off you go.
It depends which version of the Elections law (1972, 1984, 1988 or 2009) someone falls under. Some older persons only had to he Commonwealth citizens of voting age to vote under the oldest law. There are notices published in newspapers quarterly in order for you to object before a Magistrate if you think you know someone is not qualified.
Here’s a fact, there is no such thing as a “Caymanian”.
the fk am I then? 10 generations ago my ancestors settled here from Ireland
Don’t worry Bobo. You’s a British Overseas Territories Citizen, a British Citizen, and a Caymanian.
They want us to believe our nationality doesn’t exist or mean anything so we can give it to them. Simple as that.
I think the comment was more esoteric. Cayman isn’t a real “country” – it’s a British Overseas Territory – and because of that, there are technically no real “Caymanians.” In practice, of course there are, but our government has a convoluted way of identifying them.
Yeah, yeah. Non Caymanians cannot vote. Just like non Caymanians cannot attend government schools? Non Caymanian cannot own more than 40% of businesses? Non Caymanians cannot fish without a license? Non Caymanians cannot work without a work permit?
How consistently are all those restrictions working?
Hey! Infowars has a good article. Why don’t you go read it and stop your nonsense here!