---

Dear Sir,

Two weeks ago the Voters' Rights Association brought to the public's attention that in the course of inviting members of the St. George's Constituencies to a VRA meeting we found that many of the letters were returned, one of which was marked 'deceased' and the rest 'moved'.

One letter with a wrong address was eventually delivered to the person residing at another address.

Under normal circumstances this would not raise any eyebrows but as we were using the June 15, 2007, 'official' Parliamentary Register, which cost us $250, it has raised some concerns - especially when one considers the percentages of the 'random' mailings that were returned from each constituency.

Out of 316 random letters sent out, 40 letters were returned and one letter eventually found a person at another address - totalling 41 changes to the 'official' Parliamentary Register.

This amounts to 13 people in 100 voters or 13 per cent of the letters being returned. If this figure was applied to the approximate 40,000 total registered voters then it could equate to 5,200 persons [13 per cent of 40,000] being registered in one place and living in another; if they try to vote they would be breaking the law.

Averaged over 36 constituencies it could mean approximately 145 people could be voting in the wrong constituency if not detected or challenged. In those constituencies where candidates won in the past by double digit and in some cases single digit margins, any undetected illegal voters could alter the result either by error or possible manipulation.

In our subsequent analysis of each St. George's constituency the results were [as shown in pullout box at top of the page].

Can we leave the next General Election up to chance? We hope not. The VRA is providing the Parliamentary Registrar and each of the three political parties with the full analysis along with the constituent names as they appear on the Register. We trust that each of those names will be contacted by one of the above groups.

We must point out that it is not the Parliamentary Registry that is at fault. It is the system or process set out in the Election Act. The process is in serious need of reform and that is the responsibility of Parliament and in particular the Minister in charge of this area.

We hope that the powers that be will have this existing process reviewed and verify full voter registration in the lead up to any future general election. Can we really continue to call ourselves a democracy if we function under unfair and questionable processes that could evolve the wrong result? With just a few votes separating many constituencies the errors we have found should be more than enough to raise the alarm bells.

We hope the Government will do the right thing and call for a full registration as soon as possible to ensure a fair and equitable democratic election process.

The Voters' Rights Association

Bermuda[[In-content Ad]]

---