House to House registration

Mar 31, 2019 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Thousands of Guyanese live and work, legally and illegally, in other countries. Many of them are economic migrants seeking employment.
Many see themselves as temporary migrants. Their intention is to work, earn money, and send back to maintain their families in Guyana.
Then there are Guyanese who have migrated permanently, gone on a ‘holistay’ or spending long holidays with their overseas-based children. Most of them would have been registered to vote in elections in Guyana. They now face the imminent danger of being removed from the official list of electors because of house to house registration.
It is oxymoronic that a country which has opted for continuous registration, should have a policy – not a law – where every seven or more years there is to be house to house registration. This house to house registration will create a new list of electors, which excludes those who were previously registered but who could not been found at their local addresses during house to house registration because they are overseas.
Insofar as elections are concerned, the purpose of continuous registration is to ensure that persons are registered as they become eligible to be so registered. In terms of elections, continuous registration enfranchises persons by allowing the names of those eligible to vote to be extracted from the list of new registrants and placed on the List of Electors.
The present List of Electors expires on April 30th 2019. The parties in the government coalition are supporting house to house registration because they see it as a means of delaying elections. The opposition are opposing it because they want as early compliance as possible with the no confidence motion.
The decision for house to house registration should not be left to GECOM, which is polarized politically. House to house registration should be authorized by law and such a law must be consistent with the Constitution.
But, as has been pointed out in a recent commentary by Anil Nandlall, the former Attorney General of Guyana, house to house registration can end up violating the constitutional right of persons who are resident overseas but who have been registered and are thus entitled to vote. In this regard, house to house registration can end up doing the opposite of its primary intention – to enfranchise the potential electorate.
Just as there is confusion over what constitutes an absolute majority, so too there is confusion over the primary intent of house to house registration. Half plus one is not the definition of a majority. Half plus one is one of the formulae which is used to calculate a majority and it is used for even numbers of the voting population. The definition of a majority is at least one more than its rivals.
Just as how the definition of a majority should not be confused with the formulae used to calculate it, so too the primary purpose of house to house registration should not be confused with one of its unintended consequences.
The primary purpose of house to house registration should be enfranchisement, not sanitizing the electors’ list. Its function should not be about reducing bloating of the list. There are other means of sterilizing the list.
One of the arguments being used by those who are supporting house to house registration is that there are many dead persons and persons who have migrated who are still on the list. House to house registration, they contend, will allow for the names of these persons to be removed.
But should someone who has met the requirements to be an elector be removed from the list simply because that person may be working or living overseas or simply gone for an extended holiday? Should a person entitled to vote be removed from the list of electors simply because the enumerators did not find that person when they turned up to conduct house to house registration?
House to house registration will end up disenfranchising thousands of eligible electors if it proceeds on the premise that a person who is not registered during house to house registration is no longer eligible to vote. It will end up violating the constitutional right to vote.
The Constitution provides that a Guyanese citizen can vote so long as that person is registered. In order to be registered you have to give a local address, but this does not constitute a residency requirement. It merely facilitates identification of the electoral district or area in which a person is placed for voting purposes. You can always change that address during the claims and objections period if you move to another part of Guyana.
The Constitution also does not state that if you decide to migrate permanently or go and live overseas temporarily, that you lose your right to vote. It would be travesty that a Commonwealth citizen living in Guyana for one year is allowed to vote, but a Guyanese citizen making a hustle in neighbouring Suriname and registered to vote in Guyana is disenfranchised because of house to house registration.
House to house registration, therefore, should not violate the constitutional right of citizens to vote. It cannot create a residential requirement for voting where none exists under the Constitution.
We are therefore heading for another court challenge. Given the litigious nature of our society, someone may already be preparing papers to challenge the right of GECOM to remove the names of persons from the List of Electors who were not present at their given addresses during house to house registration.

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