THE claim by the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ) of a "clean" voters list is being challenged with the revelation that dead people are sill on the list, including at least one who died more than three years ago.A relative of Vhonnell Powell, who has been dead since 1998, was shocked when his voter identification card was delivered on January 13, 2002. And when The Sunday Gleaner visited the EOJ on Duke Street, Neville Graham, communications officer at EOJ, requested a search of the database with the names of voters.
Mr. Powell's name was in fact on the list.
"Regardless of when he died, the point is, it has just been discovered, and names are not randomly taken off. We will now have to investigate this and I guarantee that by the time the next voters list is printed in May, his name will be removed from it," Mr. Graham said.
But two other persons, Simone C. Bansie and Violet M. Grant, who were reported dead to the EOJ prior to the printing of last November's list, were also still on the list.
"Each political party is given two weeks to peruse the list and report any concerns to us, the information on those two persons did not come back in time," Mr. Graham said, adding that the EOJ is not discredited by the existence of dead people on the voters list.
"The way we take dead people off the list is not foolproof. But it is efficient. Once we are made aware of it, we start to investigate and take steps to have that name removed. Unless the name is discovered by us, through one of our many processes or by the relatives informing us - we won't know," Mr. Graham pointed out.
The process of identifying and removing names is tiered.
"We have been weeding out names of dead people since 1998 and a year ago we got a list of all persons who have been dead since 1997. We also get updates from RGD (Registrar General's Department) periodically," Mr. Graham said.
Dr. Patricia Holness, chief executive officer at the RGD, confirmed the alliance with EOJ.
We have sent thousands of names to them, almost every month since 1999. We have started with Kingston and are going parish by parish," Dr. Holness said.
Mr. Graham said field workers routinely check with police divisional headquarters for reported deaths, while staff within the offices scour the death pages of the newspapers.
"Many of our Returning Officers are ministers of religion who also advise us of deaths. People within communities, especially if it is in their political interest to do so, report the deaths of persons," Mr. Graham said.
"But once reported," Valerie Smith, EOJ operations manager, explained, "that starts a process of investigations, to confirm the death and remove the name from the list.
"Reports of deaths are queried by our staff. Our workers use a form in their investigations which must be certified by either a Returning Officer, a police officer in the gazetted rank or a doctor."
Once cleared, further precautions are taken internally.
"Only two persons are allowed to access the files where names of dead persons are taken off the list. And both have to work with each other. One person logs on to make the changes and the other person double checks and confirms the death on the system," Ms. Smith said, displaying the form and the computers on which the changes are made.
Since 1997, the names of 8,638 dead persons have been taken off the voter's list.
Troy Caine, political historian, said, "it remains to be seen how effective this system will be. But historically, in certain communities such as South West St. Andrew, East Central St. Andrew and West Kingston, where voter turnout has been more than 100 per cent, some of those extras have included persons voting in the name of dead people."
- K. B.
