By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

A RUSH of people seeking to register to vote on Monday forced Parliamentary Registration Department centres to extend satellite office hours to accommodate the surge.

As a result, Minister of National Security Marvin Dames yesterday urged eligible Bahamian voters to remain “calm” and “relaxed” until the next general election is called, insisting people should “not give into individuals panicking members of the public” as only the Prime Minister knows the election date.

Several registration centres were inundated with people on Monday seeking to get registered and make constituency transfers ahead of the next general election.

Many Bahamians who queued on the long lines told The Tribune their decision to visit the centres was influenced by Progressive Liberal Party leader Phillip “Brave” Davis’ recent call for people to get registered as soon as possible.

Mr Davis made the plea to Bahamians on Sunday after telling reporters he expects Dr Minnis to dissolve Parliament and announce an early election as soon as this week – an assertion that has since been brushed off by the Prime Minister.

Yesterday, Mr Dames said: “Only one person knows that date and until we hear from that person, I think we should all be calm and relaxed and not give into individuals panicking members of the public. The Prime Minister is, according to law, that person and so we all await when he decides the date of election and we will all be ready and prepared.”

Speaking generally about the rush at registration centres, Mr Dames acknowledged that Mr Davis’ “premature” announcements were responsible for triggering the large crowds in both New Providence and Grand Bahama.

He said department centres had to extend their satellite office hours to accommodate the number of people who showed up to register and change their addresses.

“It was out of the blue and hence today, if those numbers do show up again, you will see much better organisation and planning around that,” the Mount Moriah MP said before going to a Cabinet meeting.

However, he admitted the high interest in people wanting to vote this election cycle is good for democracy.

“That’s a good thing for any democracy and we know the job we have ahead of us,” Mr Dames said. “And we have been planning and preparing and have been meeting on a weekly basis, sometimes a few times a week with the parliamentary commissioner because we want to ensure that these are the best executed elections in our history (and) given the changes in the amendments to the legislation, we have to prepare accordingly.

“I said to some of my colleagues a few weeks ago that let’s take for example, the advanced polls. In 2017, we had close to 4,000 persons who participated in the advanced polls but this time is different due to the amendments or the act so we can anticipate anywhere in the area of close to 40,000 persons and so we have to prepare for that and we’re working on building those teams that will manage this from the office as well as those areas where persons will be called upon to vote whenever the election is called.”

Yesterday, Mr Dames added that officials are working feverishly to avoid a repeat of the chaotic scenes that were seen in the 2017 election during advance polls.

“We’re trying to avoid that and I on a regular basis continue to remind the parliamentary commissioner and his team that we certainly don’t want to see a recurrence of that and the task this time around is far greater,” he told reporters.

“...We can expect to see close to 40,000 (voters) and so if you look at the comparisons, we have to look at the number of centres and we have to ensure that our operations team behind the scene is in place and we’re also looking at introducing to this technology that will make the job much easier,” Mr Dames added.

“The days of handwriting and everything it’s cumbersome and antiquated and we’re hoping for this advanced poll, whenever the Prime Minister hopes to call the election, that we will have technology driving the results and the outcome.”

However, he said no digital voting will take place this election cycle.

Asked yesterday if voting ballots have already been sent to the Family Islands in preparation for the general election, Mr Dames refused to directly answer yesterday.

He only said: “Well, let’s put it this way, whenever the Prime Minister decides to call an election, you can expect that the Parliamentary Registration Department will be ready.”

According to Parliamentary Commissioner Lavado Duncanson, more than 191,000 people are currently registered to vote in the upcoming election.

Unless called earlier, the election is not due until May 2022.