Recently,three political entities attempted to “throw shade” at the office of the Parliamentary Registrar.
It started with the One Bermuda Alliance (OBA) with their child-like cries and attempts to demand the Governor and the Parliamentary Registrar move a polling station because they didn’t like the location. They then went so far as to take it to court, only to be reminded that they cannot demand polling stations to be moved.
At the end of the by-election, the FDM was making claims that there were “anomalies”, that if not sorted to their liking, would soon require there to be election observers. For clarity, election observers would mean non Bermudians being sent from the UK and other Commonwealth countries to observe Bermudians voters.
Can the FDM even clearly explain what “anomalies” they are making claims about?
They cannot continue to make baseless claims against the Parliamentary Registrar without any form of proof.
Subsequently, in a televised interview on TNN John Swan also made empty claims against the PR, stating that they may be short of staff and people did not have a chance to register to vote.
Sore losers
The OBA did not question the integrity of the PR when they won the General Election in 2012. Nor did they question the PR when they won the By-Election in Smiths North earlier this year. So, why are they suddenly making all forms of claims against the PR?
Every polling station is staffed by Bermudians who have nothing but the highest level of training and professionalism.
As for the FDM, the mere fact that they would say that overseas election observers should be brought in speaks volumes about what they think about the integrity of their fellow Bermudians who work as polling agents.
Sir John Swan led the United Bermuda Party (UBP) from 1982-1995 that manipulated annual voter registrations in order to purge the list of PLP supporters. Perhaps he does not want to admit that the UBP prevented persons under 25 the ability to vote?
In contrast, post 1998, The PLP established continuous voter registration for anyone above 18 years of age. This means that once someone is registered to vote the only way they are removed from the Voter List is if they move abroad for over 6 months and or pass away.
As importantly, anyone who is eligible to vote can simply go online to elections.gov.bm and register to vote. The entire process takes less than 5 min. Every by-election has a window of 60 days or two months. So, to claim people did not have a chance to register is complete nonsense.
There are dedicated staff at the Parliamentary Registrar’s office who go above and beyond to ensure the following:
Despite the naysayers, the people of Bermuda owe them much thanks.