Voters list still going up

(CNS): Local Registering Officers for the six electoral districts have now published their Second Quarter Revised Lists giving a final total of 15,386 people entitled to vote in the 2009 general election. Once settled by the Magistrate sitting as Revising Officer, this list will become the Official Registry of Electors on 1 April 2009 increasing the Cayman Islands electorate by 2268 people.

A record breaking number of electors are now registered to vote in Cayman with the most significant increase coming from George Town where 941 new voters have registered since the 2005 election. The Bodden Town electorate has also grown significantly with almost 700 new voters and West Bay has a another 531 people on its register.

The total number of electors on the Revised List is in the districts is as follows: West Bay 3,772; George Town: 5,971;Bodden Town 3,484; North Side, 580; East End: 599; Cayman Brac and Little Cayman: 980

After a last minute surge of people registering to vote over on the final weekend before the list closed the elections office said  the concerted effort to offer everyone a chance to enter their names before the register closed at midnight on Sunday, 1 February helped to add to the figures.

“The last minute drive to get people registered was well worth it,” said Deputy Supervisors of Elections Colford Scott who explained that they had more than 200 voters register in the last two days before it closed.

The next key dates is Nomination Day, which will take place on 25 March, the day after the dissolution of parliament by the governor on 24 March. All potential political candidates will have declared themselves and then be officially nominated to run for office in the election, which takes place on 20 May. This year theelection’s office will also have to deal with a referendum on the Cayman Islands’ future constitution setting an enormous challenge for Elections Supervisor Kearney Gomez and his team. He recently said that the office would be looking to recruit more than 600 volunteers to help them conduct this year’s election and referendum, double the usual amount of people.

“We already have a pool of people but this year we need double the usual number and we are approaching the private sector for volunteers,” said Gomez, adding that anyone who would like to participate does not have to be Caymanian but merely to have lived on the island for more than four years.