Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

Al­though the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) has put mea­sures in place for na­tion­als un­der COVID-19 quar­an­tine to vote as spe­cial elec­tors in the Au­gust 10 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram says on­ly those cur­rent­ly quar­an­tined will be able to do so.

Speak­ing dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Min­istry of Health vir­tu­al me­dia con­fer­ence, Paras­ram ex­plained that forms were col­lect­ed from the EBC and had al­ready been dis­trib­uted to those in quar­an­tine. How­ev­er, the dead­line for reg­is­tra­tion as a spe­cial elec­tor was on Ju­ly 17 and there­fore on­ly those who are cur­rent­ly in quar­an­tine and had gone through that process would be able to re­ceive this fa­cil­i­ty.

How­ev­er, he not­ed that al­though some na­tion­als were cur­rent­ly quar­an­tined, if all goes as planned and they do not present with COVID-19, they could be re­leased be­fore the spe­cial elec­tion card­ed for the first week of Au­gust.

“We have dis­trib­uted the forms just out of cau­tion to give them the op­por­tu­ni­ty to reg­is­ter in the event they may be­come pos­i­tive and they have to stay longer and I am sup­posed to re­ceive feed­back from the dif­fer­ent sites to­day (yes­ter­day)...to de­ter­mine how many peo­ple ac­tu­al­ly filled them out,” Paras­ram said.

Asked if the min­istry had reached out to in­di­vid­u­als sched­uled to re­turn to the coun­try to fa­cil­i­tate the elec­toral process, he said: “In terms of the per­sons com­ing in, no, be­cause there’s that EBC dead­line...per­sons be­yond that date would not be el­i­gi­ble to be con­sid­ered.”

On Ju­ly 6, EBC Chief Elec­tions Of­fi­cer Fern Nar­cis-Scope told Guardian Me­dia that arrange­ments would be made to en­sure that even na­tion­als in quar­an­tine would not be dis­en­fran­chised dur­ing the Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

“We have ad­vised the CMO that it is our in­ten­tion to al­low peo­ple who are in quar­an­tine the op­por­tu­ni­ty to vote. They will be treat­ed as spe­cial elec­tors and will be tak­en care of in ac­cor­dance with the leg­is­la­tion that speaks to the sit­u­a­tion for spe­cial elec­tors,” Nar­cis-Scope said then.

“Per­sons who are in quar­an­tine will be asked to ap­ply to be treat­ed as a spe­cial elec­tor and there­after arrange­ments will be made for a spe­cial polling sta­tion to be set up in that quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ty dur­ing the pe­ri­od for spe­cial vot­ing so these peo­ple in quar­an­tine can vote.”