By Balford Henry, News EditorTHE ELECTORAL Office of Jamaica (EOJ) is currently looking into a problem which has arisen in Central St. Catherine resulting in the resignation of Returning Officer Vera Roofe.
Mrs. Roofe is reported to have resigned from the position, after claiming that certain threatening statements were made to her during a meeting over a request to remove certain polling stations in the Eltham area.
The "threatening statements" were said to have been made by one of the candidates for the constituency at a meeting last week Wednesday.
Director of Elections, Danville Walker, told The Gleaner at yesterday's Editors' Forum that his office was awaiting reports on the incident after which it would make a public comment.
Mr. Walker explained the matter in the context of the fact that since the last voters' list, following the enumeration period leading up to May 31, which attracted a record number of persons registering to vote at which time the question of the polling stations was settled.
He said that after the stations were settled, the problem arose of some 53,000 persons registered over that six-month period.
"Over the years we had not done that much, much less over a six-month period. Some of the stations now had to be split, once a polling station is over 250 you usually split it into an A and B station to facilitate the easier voting on election day," he explained.
"So the location where the polling stations were, we had 23 stations there already and because they had gotten so large, we were looking to remove five to another location that was not available at the time at a new school that was built in Eltham and there was some objection to that taking place. And, it seemed like some harsh words were spoken at the time in that meeting and some reference to an incident in 1980 was made and it was interpreted as a sort of threatening comment and, I think, it has resulted in a Returning Officer resigning. So we are looking at the situation. Once we have those reports we will be able to make some statement on the matter."
The Gleaner understands that the reference to 1980 concerned the fact that tensions in the constituency over polling stations had led to the death of the returning officer for the constituency that year.
Mr. Walker said that if the resignation stands, the EOJ would not have an easy task finding a replacement.
"Central St. Catherine is not somewhere where I am going to get someone volunteering to go on work in. It is a difficult constituency in a number of respects," he said.
He said that although every constituency has an assistant returning officer, "We would have to make a determination as to whether that person can carry on as the returning officer, or whether that person wants to. But, it is early days yet."
He added, "I think that at this time, if the comment that I am told was made, and I am waiting to see the minutes of the meeting, then I believe it would have been a very unfortunate comment and I think that we have to address that first, before we start to look at how we solve the administrative problem that we may have."
