Drive begins to get over 3,900 people on voter roll
(CNS): The Elections Office is launching a voter registration drive to encourage qualified electors to take part in the government referendum on gambling and ganja that is expected to take place later this year. Although a date has not yet been set in law by parliament, in order to make the electoral roll by 1 July, would-be eligible voters must sign up by 1 April.
The list of electors currently stands at 23,496, but the Economics and Statistics Office has estimated that there are an additional 3,927 people who are eligible but not registered to vote.
“Our aim, as always, is to make registration as effortless as possible for those wishing to vote while maintaining the highest accuracy and confidence in the process,” said Supervisor of Elections Wesley Howell. “To facilitate a smooth and easy process and avoid additional follow-up appointments, we ask persons looking to register at supermarket locations to bring copies of all the required identification documents with them when registering. The Elections Office staff is also ready to assist individuals registering to vote at our convenient locations.”
Visit the Elections Office website for more on how to register or call 949-8047.
In addition, staff members will be available to register individuals on weekdays and weekends at the following supermarket locations.
Hurley’s – Grand Harbour
· Saturday, 25 February – 9 am to 1pm
· Wednesday, 8 March – 4:30 pm to 7:30pm
· Saturday, 18 March – 9:30am to 12:30pm
· Wednesday, 22 March – 4:30pm to 7:30pm
Foster’s – Countryside
· Thursday, 9 March – 4pm to 7pm
· Saturday, 11 March – 9am to 2pm
· Thursday, 23 March – 4pm to 7pm
· Thursday, 30 March – 4pm to 7pm
Foster’s – Airport
· Thursday, 9 March – 4pm to 7pm
· Saturday, 11 March – 10am to 1pm
· Thursday, 23 March – 4pm to 7pm
· Thursday, 30 March – 4pm to 7pm
Foster’s – Camana Bay
· Saturday, 25 February – 10am to 2pm
· Wednesday, 1 March – 4pm to 7pm
· Wednesday, 15 March – 4pm to 7pm
· Wednesday, 29 March – 4pm to 7pm
Foster’s – Republix
· Saturday, 4 March – 9:30am to 1pm
· Wednesday, 15 March – 4:30pm to 7:30pm
· Saturday, 25 March – 9:30am to 1pm
The Elections Office will be open on select Saturdays:
· Saturday, 11, 18 and 25 March – 10am to 4pm
· Saturday, 1 April – 10am to 4pm
- Fascinated
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- Afraid
$1,000 per vote.
That’s a very generous estimate that 2,000 people have nothing better to do on a public holiday than to go vote in a meaningless referendum.
They are firing up the election machinery for a 2 million dollar referendum which is completely a waste of time and resources!
They should be firing it up for an early election and get rid of this useless PACT government. These people can’t agree on a thing and nothing gets done. The civil service has been on a 2 year vacation ‘pencils down’ my friends. Sad state of affairs for this country. Its a good thing the foreigners are pouring in and paying their stamp duties or the place would be broke. Keep spending PACT government!
Be careful what you wish for, Caymanians. Your young people are already performing badly (a) in school; (b) with teenage pregnancy rates; and (c) in competition for professional services jobs (despite being cheaper to hire, since there’s no work permit to pay).
You risk making things even worse:
“Legalisation of cannabis is a fool’s crusade – Calls to make dope as freely available as cigarettes or alcohol are gathering support but ignore the real harm it does.
[…]
Study after study has found a clear association between the high levels of THC that most present-day cannabis contains and serious mental health problems, particularly schizophrenia and psychosis. The most extensive report was published in 2017 by the American National Academy of Medicine, a 468-page tome with an unambiguous finding that “cannabis use is likely to increase the risk of developing schizophrenia and other psychoses; the higher the use, the greater the risk”. This formalised knowledge that had been shared for millennia; around the first century AD, a Chinese guide to herbs and drugs warned that cannabis smoking led to “seeing devils”.
Those tormented by devils today tend to seek sanctuary in the local A&E, where admissions for psychosis have been rising. This year another study found that the use of super-strength cannabis in London had helped to drive psychosis rates to the highest level recorded in Europe. Professor Sir Robin Murray, a psychiatrist at King’s College London, declared that “in Brexit Britain we are leading in one area still and that is the frequency of psychosis . . . If we could abolish the consumption of skunk we would have 30 per cent less patients.”
The Big Dope lobby has an answer to evidence such as this: the high-potency drug thrives in an unregulated black market. Once regulated, they suggest, only the weaker, safer, low-THC forms of cannabis would be licensed. But THC is the part of the drug that delivers the high. Users want the bigger hit that comes with a big THC dose. If this isn’t available over the counter, they’ll just carry on buying it under the counter. This is what has happened in Canada, where about half the cannabis consumed is bought on the black market. Around the world we have seen that legalisation does not rid a country of its dealers; instead, by normalising drug use, it increases their potential market.
Before we embrace a policy that could dramatically inflate the weed-smoking part of the population, we need to be clear-eyed about the third link in the chain: cannabis use; mental health problems; violent crime. In an extraordinary number of brutal crimes, the assailant had a history of heavy use. Many of these are documented on a website called Attacker Smoked Cannabis, whose curator writes: “Once one learns the characteristics of violence committed by cannabis smokers — frenzied, savage, sustained, unprovoked — such violence becomes easy to spot. A young father violently killing his child? A victim stabbed 10, 20, 50, 100 times? . . . Such crimes used to be rare in the UK and Ireland, if they happened at all. In 2019, there were more than two dozen before Easter.” Seeing devils, those smoking high-strength cannabis can become one.
As for the effect of legalisation on violent crime, several American states are our guinea pigs. In Tell Your Children: the Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence, former New York Times journalist Alex Berenson shines a light on the data in states that have legalised cannabis. Taking four that changed their laws from 2014 to 2015 — Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington — he calculated a 35 per cent rise in murders from 2013 to 2017, compared with a 20 per cent rise nationally. Though Berenson does not suggest this is all down to legal weed, he wants “people to stop saying that legalisation reduces violent crime. It doesn’t.”
The promised gains of legalisation are outweighed by the dangers of normalising what can be a mind-wrecking substance. I don’t suggest the status quo is satisfactory; only that legalising the drug would make it considerably worse. Liberals might have chosen the legalisation of cannabis as their next great crusade but encouraging more people to try this dangerous drug would be no liberation at all.”
Clare Foges, The Times (of London), 25 November 2019, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/legalisation-of-cannabis-is-a-fools-crusade-7czldrbk9
Since I started smoking weed:- I am no longer taking 16 (legally prescribed) Percocet’s a day, 6 Xanax, anti-depressants, and sleeping pills. All of which had horrible side effects, which were worse than what I was taking the medication for in the first place and which literally turned me into a zombie.
I now smoke on a daily basis, hold down a full-time job as a Manager, have opened two successful businesses and am no longer filled with rage at the world.
For me, smoking has changed my life for the better. Definitely haven’t had to go to the hospital for any psychosis. Nor have I become “frenzied” “savaged” “violent” or wanted to stab a child or any other person or adult.
Stop spreading mis-information please. I know people who drink and become violent, paranoid, psychotic, frenzied after consuming alcohol.
I’ve been around people who smoke weed and so far the worst thing that has happened is that we get the munchies, giggle a lot and fall asleep on the couch.
Weed is no worse than alcohol, and most legal drugs that they shove down our throats.
However you are, by your own admission, a criminal. So not exactly an example to be admired.
A liar too. 16 Percocet, 6 Xanax, anti-depressants, and sleeping pills, is not a cocktail that a licensed physician would prescribe any patient, let alone a deeply psychotic one that felt like stabbing children.
16 Percocet a day? Legally prescribed, when the maximal dose is 12 and the usual is 4 to 8? And there is a clear contradiction in prescribing Xanax with Percocet to boot? Either you had multiple doctors and didn’t tell them about the others, or your experience with the illegal purchase of drugs started before you moved in to ganga. BTW can’t find a single reference to the the prescription of opioids for people “ filled with rage at the world”. It’s meant to be a paid medication dude, not an anti psychotic.
3900 more Jamaican voters !!
Only Caymanians can vote.
No. Only people registered to vote can vote. They are not necessarily Caymanian.
And plenty – they think at least 3900 – Caymanians who could register to vote who choose not to.
Status gives you the right to vote, because you are then Caymanian.
The Elections Law needs many changes. First and fundamentally, nobody with a criminal (theft, drugs, assault) or moral turpitude arrest on charges or conviction (DUI etc) should ever be eligible to actively assume control of hundreds millions in public money, be entrusted to policy and legal decisions, or appointed to boards or other positions of trust. Yet, there hasn’t been a single MP or party in the Legislative Assembly, in the history of the Territory, to underwrite such a change to the law. It’s truly remarkable. It serves as further confirmation to our global foes that Cayman is corruption friendly and open for business. It then doesn’t matter what pioneering legislative hoops the Financial Sector adopts to jump through while the 800lb gorilla is sat in the corner throwing feces. We need to see the gorilla.
The Premier likes gorilla glue.
This is an interesting point.
When the elected representatives vote, everyone knows who they voted for. There is no dispute.
If the votes in elections were made public, it would be impossible for the result to be subverted.
No free democracy has published confidential ballots cast since cave dwelling. Let’s not go back there.
kenny and his wish list.
I am eligible to vote but not eligible to run for office (because I don’t have a Caymanian grandparent). You cannot have it both ways i.e. want me to vote but keep me out of politics. I am not registering until this law changes.
As someone with the requist grandparents, I agree with you. However, if you want laws to change then voting and engaging with your MP and others is the way to make changes happen.
I have, and there is no plan to change
…and they won’t take the meeting unless you’re on the register.
Wouldnt it make more sense to vote for someone who was willing to change the law/constitution? You will never get it with that attitude Im afraid! Throwing a tantrum doesnt work
Name just one who is willing.
Oh you mean the attitude of protesting unfair laws? Do you know the difference between tantrum and commentary? Oh and every MP I have spoken to has no desire to change the law.
it is the same in the us. you should feel lucky to be granted Cayman citizenship. Not everyone was as lucky as you.
No it isn’t, stop spreading BS.
it isn’t though…. just the president has to be American by birth. why can’t I serve as an MLA??
Sell some cocaine, assault a few women, crash in to a few light poles after a long day at “the office” and you’ll be eligible in no time.
one of the best posts ever…
Ridiculous! You cannot be president of the USA unless you were born in the United States but that doesn’t stop people from voting. If you want change, VOTE!!
so let us with status run for MLA!
If those without Cayman roots could run then we would have full Jamaican Parliament as they outnumber everyone else put together. Watch what you wish for.
Who said anything about president? The requirements for eg a senator do NOT require you to be born in the USA, only to be a citizen.
Since it’s not immediately obvious, what is this magical leadership ingredient conferred through grandparents?
Caymanian lineage and heritage. Roots long enough be given that hereditary right.
Ahh yes that hereditary right. Way more important than honesty or ability. You would rather have Caymanians with grandparents but with a criminal record or a demonstrated lack of morals represent you than honest, competent first or second generation Caymanians, because we know what’s important, right?
The law says you can vote for me, but you can’t be me and represent voters. Status makes you a Caymanian by law, but not the type we want to serve.
They could not use the ‘born here’ rule because that would discount most of the older MPs so they invented the grand parent rule.
I am also an registered elector with Caymanian Status. If you are an American citizen, you must renounce your citizenship (and pay the hefty get-out-of-America IRS fine) before you can run for office. I have Caymanian parents and grandparents. That doesn’t qualify me for running for office.
I don’t like how we elect MPs based upon their platform, but then they can recombine with others to form a government that is actually opposed to their original platform. That disturbs me.
Still, it seems better to have a hand in the process via the vote, than to sit in the corner and pout.
You might have a point if there was anyone worth voting for. Do you not recall that Tara Rivers also has US citizenship by birth and was an MLA?
nonsense
What is the point in registering to vote as a Second Class Citizen? Only country in world which discriminates as to which subset of citizen can run for ANY elected office. UK FCDO needs to act.
Because if you have any sense you can try and support half decent candidates who would be less likely to ruin these islands. I don’t like being a second class citizen either but if I can help out wote some of the candidates that seem to be preferred by first class citizens then I’ve accomplished something.
It is quite deliberate to ensure the ‘old boys club’ remains intact and to keep the gene pool shallow. For this reason I refuse to register.
This is what I hear from you: “I don’t like the way things are, so I am going to tie my own hands until things are the way I imagine.”
Just because you ‘hear it’ doesn’t mean it is true.
Same laws apply in the uk but I don’t see you protesting against Westminster?
Absolute rubbish, you do not need a British grand parent to be eligible for the office of MP in the UK. You just need to be a citizen and an adult!
and thats why the UK has and is going to shit. If it’s so great why did you move here ?
Just because I stated a fact about UK politics you assume I moved here from there? I was born here. Oh and I have no idea where you got ‘if it’s so great from’. Where was that stated?
born Caymanians dont use the word”rubbish” That was the clear give away.
It is not common, but oh yes they do, so where do we go from here, into a childish debate about the vernacular? Born here and educated in the UK, there, that my help you to understand, much like born Caymanians educated in the USA will say garbage or Mom.
It’s their uneducated way of trying to diminish you. sounds like an MP wrote that.
Does the British Prime Minister look British to you?
No to Gambling (Only drains the local economy, more jobs is a lie. Gambling revenues take out far more than it gives back to the local economy)
Yes to local lottery (Money going overseas for that now)
Whatever you want on ganja. Let’s the stoners decide.
I don’t like gambling either. But you already have people addicted to the notifications on facebook, whatsapp, and other social media sites. They waste time, energy, and monies that can be put on meaningful things. It is the same dopamine vides like you get from gambling. But at the end of the day, people choose their addictive sins. It is between them and the Almighty. Nobody sticks a gun to a drunkard’s head, and tells him to go into a bar. Sadly, the fool chooses to put his foot into the bar.
CIG appears desperate to find a source of revenue that is sustainable. Instead of more overcrowding and development, why not mirror what Colorado has done, and legalise ganja. In 2021, Colorado made more than $400 million from marijuana related taxes. They even created and installed a standard and road sobriety test to determine ganja intoxication.
Fatal vehicle crashes involving marijuana surged in Colorado.
Give me the weed, good ganja weed!!!!
If you like psychosis, do it.
Get over the propaganda from the 50s.
Ironic that there is a government drive to get additional voters on the electoral roll, but another government drive to prevent people being added to the list of eligible voters by not processing any status applications. Wrong kind of potential voters, I guess 😉
They don’t want any educated voters, who can see through their lies and corruption.
When will the referendum on illegal billboards and leaf blowers be taking place?
These are far bigger issues than gambling and ganja.
The more you keep complaining about leaf blowers the more no one is going to listen.
Probably because they can’t hear anyway over the godforsaken noise!
why do they make it so painfull to get on the register?
if you get get status, why are you not automatically added?
it’s like cig and civil service live for added layers of red-tape to everything here….
Jury duty.
Unless you live in the Sister Islands!
Elvis can tell you all about it.
You are not “automatically added” because this is a democracy and you have the choice to vote, or not to vote.
It’s a civic duty
Guess what – if you are on the electoral list you also get the choice to vote or not. So your comment is basically wrong. As for it being a democracy, more than 50% of the adult population not even being allowed to vote even when some of them have lived here more than 15 years isn’t a democracy.
I would love to but my status application is in limbo, for almost a year, and listed for a holiday in July. Could Mr. Howell please explain how I am to register? Isn’t he in charge of immigration?
You are not meant to vote. You are just meant to keep paying your annual fees whilst WORC deliberately ignores their obligations under the law to deal with your application in a reasonable time. Win win for the government. More revenue, stop broadening the electoral pool to people who may have dangerous ideas.
Well they will be sued and have to repay soon so that’s good.
Same here. Have had to pay another 2 years of work permit fees to the government since applying for my status, and all while being retired and not actually working.
Its a scam.
It actually may be maladministration. You may wish to Judicially Review the Commissioner of Police for the Department’s failure to hold government to account for any illegality.
And have my home address published online for all to see? No thanks.
Breach of CI Data Protection Act.
I’m a grown ass Caymanian but my address still by my daddeh’s lol
Expat trolling, pretending to be a Caymanian that’s not registering to vote.