Guyanese are well aware of the Opposition allegations that the electoral list is bloated and needs to be ‘cleaned.’ In recent letters to the press, the Attorney General has pointed out, in a more direct manner than I have done in the past, that the electoral list cannot be bloated if the Chief Justice has ruled that names are validly on the list even if the persons cannot be located at their addresses.
The decision means that the name of a person who has migrated cannot be deleted from the list since there is no resident requirement for voting and, therefore, no resident requirement for being on the electoral roll. The Opposition blindly promotes the flawed idea that the electoral list is bloated in the face of the repeated publicising of the constitutional provision that does not provide a resident qualification for voting. Article 59 of the Constitution states that “… every person may vote at an election if he or she is of the age of eighteen years or upwards and is either a citizen of Guyana or a Commonwealth citizen domiciled or resident in Guyana.”
