Gail Alexan­der

Spe­cial vot­ing for those in quar­an­tine was com­plet­ed yes­ter­day and 10 quar­an­tined peo­ple who were el­i­gi­ble to vote, did so.

A to­tal of 54 peo­ple who had been in quar­an­tine had ap­plied for spe­cial vot­ers’ sta­tus by the Ju­ly 17 dead­line for such vot­ers. But on­ly 10 vot­ed yes­ter­day since the oth­er 44 have been re­leased from quar­an­tine al­ready.

Those 44 who are out of quar­an­tine will be able to vote as spe­cial vot­ers this week, Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion Chief Elec­tion Of­fi­cer Fern Nar­cis-Scope added yes­ter­day.

Spe­cial vot­ing be­gan yes­ter­day for peo­ple who will be un­able to vote on elec­tion day. Vot­ing con­tin­ues un­til 3 pm on Sun­day ahead of Mon­day’s gen­er­al elec­tion.

The num­ber of spe­cial vot­ers for this elec­tion is 21,565.

The to­tal elec­torate in the re­vised vot­ers’ list for the up­com­ing elec­tion is 1,134,136.

Af­ter the elec­tion was called the EBC had made it clear that peo­ple in quar­an­tine would not be dis­en­fran­chised. EBC had in­formed the Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer that the Com­mis­sion in­tend­ed to al­low peo­ple who are in quar­an­tine the op­por­tu­ni­ty to vote, as spe­cial elec­tors. Arrange­ments were made for spe­cial polling sta­tions to be set up in any quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ty dur­ing the spe­cial vot­ing pe­ri­od for such peo­ple.

Yes­ter­day Nar­cis-Scope said peo­ple who wished to be spe­cial vot­ers had ap­plied to the EBC up to the dead­line of Ju­ly 17.

As such peo­ple who en­tered T&T af­ter Ju­ly 17 and were quar­an­tined would not have had an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be a spe­cial vot­er.

Nar­cis-Scope said that of the num­ber of peo­ple who were quar­an­tined, on­ly a to­tal of 54 ap­plied to be spe­cial elec­tors.

“By the time spe­cial vot­ing be­gan, of the 54 who were quar­an­tined, 44 had emerged from that sta­tus. So on­ly the re­main­ing num­ber - a to­tal of 10 peo­ple - vot­ed (yes­ter­day),” she added.

She said that cov­ered all of those in quar­an­tine who’d ap­plied to be spe­cial vot­ers.

The oth­er 44 who still hold spe­cial vot­er sta­tus can vote up to Sun­day at Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cers’ lo­ca­tions as oth­er spe­cial vot­ers are do­ing.

Yes­ter­day sev­er­al peo­ple who were re­cent­ly quar­an­tined for the manda­to­ry two-week COVID quar­an­tine pe­ri­od con­tact­ed Guardian Me­dia on whether or how they might be able to vote. But such per­sons were quar­an­tined af­ter the Ju­ly 17 dead­line to ap­ply as spe­cial vot­ers and as such would be un­able to. The Health Min­istry yes­ter­day con­firmed 106 peo­ple are cur­rent­ly in quar­an­tine.