Director of Elections Danville Walker (left) and Dorothy Pine-McLarty (centre), executive member of the Electoral Advisory Committee (EAC), listen as EAC Chairman Errol Miller updates the media on preparations for upcoming elections during a press briefing yesterday at the EAC's offices on Old Hope Road, St. Andrew. - RUDOLPH BROWN/CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER
THE ELECTORAL Office of Jamaica (EOJ) has admitted that it inadvertently left 449 names off the June 16 voters list.
But Director of Elections Danville Walker has sought to assure that these persons will be included in the new list to be published on July 31.
The names were removed during the EOJ's recent reverification exercise.
Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) General Secretary, Karl Samuda, had complained that hundreds of persons from a number of constituencies were not on the list at the end of the exercise.
At a press conference held at the Electoral Advisory Committee's Old Hope Road offices in St. Andrew yesterday, EAC chairman, Professor Errol Miller, said of the 2,335 names the JLP said were left off the list, 286 were confirmed by the EOJ.
He said, in the case of the People's National Party (PNP), only six of the 639 names, which the party said were left off the list, have been confirmed by the EOJ.
OTHERS TO BE INCLUDED
Another 157 persons who responded to the EOJ's advertisements and visited its offices will also be included on the new list.
According to Professor Miller, the list published on June 16 was 99.8 per cent accurate, with the 0.2 per cent error now being corrected for the July 31 publishing of the next list.
The new list will reflect a total of 1,262,229 voters.
Meanwhile, EAC member Karl Samuda said the Opposition is satisfied with the corrections made by the EOJ.
"The JLP feels confident that this list represents as good a list as is possible at this time and we are assured by the utterances of the Director of Elections that in the event that anyone may come forward between now and when he is prepared to make the correction, he would be prepared to do further corrections."
