Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Al­though slight­ly more peo­ple ap­plied to be spe­cial vot­ers for the up­com­ing 2023 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions than in 2019, it was slow go­ing in cer­tain ar­eas for yes­ter­day’s start of spe­cial vot­ing.

The vot­ing will con­tin­ue un­til Sun­day.

Those who are con­sid­ered spe­cial vot­ers in­clude po­lice of­fi­cers, pris­ons of­fi­cers, fire of­fi­cers, mem­bers of the T&T De­fence Force, air­craft flight crews, EBC and oth­er polling per­son­nel who are work­ing on elec­tion day.

Spe­cial vot­ing al­so caters to peo­ple who are un­able or un­like­ly to be able to go to a polling sta­tion, such as pa­tients or pris­on­ers.

The Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion, in a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, gave the fig­ure for spe­cial elec­tors in this year’s Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions as 13,284.
The num­ber of spe­cial elec­tors in the De­cem­ber 2, 2019 poll was 13,050.

Spe­cial elec­tors are on­ly el­i­gi­ble to vote dur­ing the pe­ri­ods stat­ed by the EBC and can­not vote on Mon­day’s poll day.

Polling sta­tions are op­er­at­ing dai­ly un­til Sun­day from 9 am to 3 pm.

At the EBC’s polling sta­tions on Hen­ry and Char­lotte Streets in Port-of-Spain, vot­ing was slow.
At the Hen­ry Street sta­tion, peo­ple came in one by one.

Guardian Me­dia met up with some spe­cial vot­ers yes­ter­day. A few said they were not vot­ing that day and had to vote on an­oth­er date. One woman said she had come yes­ter­day but the date for her to vote was wrong and she had to come back.

Ac­tiv­i­ty at the Char­lotte Street sta­tion (at OW­TU build­ing) was slow up to mid­day. Some peo­ple came in the morn­ing pe­ri­od and trick­led in through­out the day.

PNM chair­man Stu­art Young did not re­ply to calls on the par­ty’s as­sess­ment of the start of vot­ing, nor did PNM pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Faris Al-Rawi.
The par­ty’s gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings al­so did not re­spond.

UNC gen­er­al sec­re­tary Pe­ter Kan­hai said the par­ty did not ex­pect to see a flood of spe­cial vot­ers.
“I haven’t any feed­back on any is­sues thus far. It’s 13, 284 spe­cial vot­ers in this sev­en-day ex­er­cise so I don’t ex­pect any rush at any point,” he said.

UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Jear­lean John said spe­cial vot­ing is usu­al­ly nev­er heavy, but she added, “The UNC has its ma­chin­ery in ac­tion and all our agents were where they’re sup­posed to be.”

More vot­ers in 2023

Based on in­for­ma­tion from the EBC, there is an in­creased elec­torate, as well as in­creased spe­cial vot­ers for the 2023 LGE when com­pared to the sta­tis­tics for those in 2019.

The elec­torate for the 141 re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion seats for Mon­day’s polls is 1,091,936 - and the spe­cial elec­tors are 13,284.

In 2019, where sev­en par­ties com­pet­ed - PNM, UNC, COP, MND, MS­DJ, NPT, PPM - there was a 7-7 tie be­tween the PNM and UNC. The elec­torate in the 139 re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion seats then was 1,079,976 - with the 13,050 spe­cial elec­tors. There was a vot­er turnout of 34.49 per cent then.
The to­tal votes cast were 372,503. The PNM re­ceived 161,962 and the UNC which won the pop­u­lar vote ob­tained 202,584 votes.
The PNM se­cured 74 of the 139 seats be­ing con­test­ed and the UNC, 65 seats.