The Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) has de­cid­ed to al­low po­lit­i­cal par­ties to view the open­ing of the bal­lot box­es of spe­cial vot­ers.

On Tues­day, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar called on the EBC to al­low po­lit­i­cal par­ties to wit­ness the sort­ing of the spe­cial bal­lots.

There are 13,284 spe­cial vot­ers, who be­gan cast­ing their bal­lots on Mon­day for the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions. Spe­cial vot­ing will come to an end on Sun­day.

In a let­ter dat­ed Au­gust 8, 2023, Chief Elec­tion Of­fi­cer Fern Nar­cis-Scope re­spond­ed to the UNC po­lit­i­cal leader’s re­quest un­der the cap­tion: “Pro­ce­dure for Open­ing Spe­cial Bal­lot Box­es es­tab­lished un­der Elec­tion Rule 76.”

Nar­cis-Scope said ref­er­ence was made to tele­phone in­quiries made by Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al and to Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s sub­se­quent emailed cor­re­spon­dence.

Nar­cis-Scope said at a meet­ing of the com­mis­sion on that day (Au­gust 8), she in­formed the mem­bers of Sen­a­tor Lutch­me­di­al’s in­quiry as to the par­ty’s abil­i­ty to at­tend and wit­ness the open­ing of the spe­cial bal­lot box­es.

“The Com­mis­sion not­ed that while there is no le­gal re­quire­ment that such wit­ness­es be rep­re­sen­ta­tives of a po­lit­i­cal par­ty, a can­di­date, elec­tion agent, sub-agent, polling agent or spe­cial polling agent, as with cer­tain oth­er process­es un­der the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Act Chap­ter 2:01, it has no ob­jec­tion to the re­quest and would in­vite all po­lit­i­cal par­ties and in­de­pen­dent can­di­dates to send rep­re­sen­ta­tives to wit­ness the process,” she said.

On elec­tion day, po­lit­i­cal par­ties are al­lowed to have elec­tion agents present at polling sta­tions from the start of vot­ing to the end of the count­ing process.