We need a clean list

Dear Editor,
ONE Nutana Singh argues in a recent letter that since the Constitution protects the rights and interests of citizens’ resident abroad, this means that a citizen residing abroad permanently should qualify to vote in Guyana’s elections.

Nutana’s erroneous views are contained in a SN letter (August 26). Article 31 says that the State has a duty to protect the JUST rights and interests of citizens resident abroad.
This means that, through its Consulates, the State would intervene wherever a Guyanese citizen faces any trouble or, in extreme cases, where the State evacuates Guyanese at times of disasters as happened when hurricane struck Dominica and Antigua, and Guyana sent planes to bring home those who wanted help.

This “duty” of the State does not extend to allowing overseas Guyanese or Guyanese nationals of a foreign country who live permanently overseas, to vote in elections if they were not registered to do so by a certain qualifying date.

Of course, a citizen has a right to vote, but that citizen has to be resident in Guyana, or is ordinarily domiciled in Guyana at the time when verification of the voters list is being done. Once someone objects to the name being on the list because the person is no longer living in Guyana, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has a duty to remove that name from the list. The same is done with names of those who have died. We need a clean list, and Nutana has said nothing to convince sensible people to believe that GECOM cannot remove fake names from the national register, or from a voters list.

Regards,
Shawn James

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