Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith says he in­tends to have a strong and vis­i­ble pres­ence of po­lice of­fi­cers across T&T to de­ter in­ci­dents of in­tim­i­da­tion, vot­er sup­pres­sion, bribery, or il­le­gal can­vass­ing on gen­er­al elec­tion day.

He gave this as­sur­ance to the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) Chief Elec­tion Of­fi­cer Fern Nar­cis-Scope and Deputy Chief Elec­tions Of­fi­cer Lena Sa­hadeo dur­ing a meet­ing yes­ter­day at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of- Spain.

Al­so in at­ten­dance at the meet­ing was Deputy Com­mis­sion­er Jayson Forde.

The meet­ing pro­vid­ed the op­por­tu­ni­ty for EBC of­fi­cials to speak with Grif­fith about the role and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of the Po­lice Ser­vice in en­sur­ing that the gen­er­al elec­tions are free and fair for all cit­i­zens.

Among the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties for of­fi­cers, will be pro­vid­ing se­cu­ri­ty for EBC of­fices and sites and es­cort­ing elec­tion para­pher­na­lia to be used by elec­tion of­fi­cials on elec­tion day—Au­gust 10.

The EBC of­fi­cials al­so re­quest­ed that the po­lice as­sist elec­tion of­fi­cials in en­sur­ing cit­i­zens ad­here to a re­quest for masks to be worn and prop­er hy­giene prac­ticed up­on en­ter­ing a polling sta­tion.

Grif­fith said he will be over­see­ing the elec­tion day op­er­a­tions from the Com­mis­sion­er’s Com­mand Cen­tre and there will be an open line of com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween him and EBC of­fi­cials at all times in the event of some un­to­ward in­ci­dent.

He al­so said Emer­gency Re­sponse Pa­trol ve­hi­cles, equipped with dash­board cam­erasm will be de­ployed to large polling sta­tions and pro­vide the Com­mand Cen­tre with re­al-time video footage of the ac­tiv­i­ties at these lo­ca­tions.

The two par­ties are ex­pect­ed to meet again in the com­ing weeks as they con­tin­ue their close col­lab­o­ra­tion to en­sure the elec­tion run smooth­ly.