CATEGORY:ELECTIONS ---------------------- INSIDE GRENADA SUNDAY October 28,2007 (The National Democratic Congress (NDC) is concerned about alleged irregularities with the Voters' List and has written to Governor General Sir Daniel Williams expressing doubt over the integrity of the List. In the letter, the Chairman of the Electoral Committee of the NDC, Senator George Prime highlighted the concerns of the party and requested urgent intervention by His Excellency to remedy the situation.) October 26, 2007 Re: Malfunctioning of the Computerized Voter Registration System I write to you in my capacity as Chairman of the Electoral Committee of the National Democratic Congress (NDC). I wish to take this opportunity to share with you our Party’s grave concerns regarding certain developments which have been brought to my attention, relating to the integrity of the Voters’ List. As a result of information received, I called to speak to the Supervisor of Elections, on October 24th, 2007, to seek her clarification with respect to the exclusion of certain names from the Voters’ List and an apparent malfunctioning of the computerized voter registration system. Due to the unavailability of the Supervisor of Elections, I was directed to Mr. Wilfred Charles with whom I spoke about my concern. Having indicated to Mr. Charles that I had information that certain names were excluded from the Voters List, he advised me that “it would be more correct to say that certain names were lost”. Mr. Charles went on to assure me that efforts were being made to address the problem. On Friday 26th October 2007, my colleague Hon. Nazim Burke, reported to me that in a conversation of even date, with the Supervisor of Elections, she confirmed that there was indeed “ a problem which had now festered into a sore”. You would no doubt appreciate that these words point to a very grave situation, as it throws into serious doubt, the integrity of the Voters’ List, especially in light of the sudden departure of the former Supervisor Mr. Ashby and the Assistant Supervisor Mr. Roberts. We have been advised that the genesis of this problem had to do with the intervention of a “consultant” to make unexplained adjustments to the voter registration system as presently configured. We are further advised that on account of the gravity of the problem, Microsoft Corp. has been contacted for assistance. As you are well aware, the Grenada Constitution guarantees the right of every Grenadian who attains the age of majority and who is otherwise eligible to register as a voter, to exercise their franchise in any general election held in Grenada. This development threatens to undermine the constitutional rights of persons previously registered and, at minimum, creates serious inconvenience for our previously registered voters. In light of the gravity of this situation, we have written to the Governor General requesting his urgent intervention to remedy this problem. In particular, we have requested a full investigation into: a) How this problem may have arisen b) The mechanisms in place for maintaining and upgrading the Voter Registration System, including the protection and integrity of stored information, as well as overwrite authority and administrative privileges; c) The adequacy of existing methods and protocols for storage and retrieval of back up information in the event of system failure or national disaster; and d) The credentials of the person or persons outside of the established staff of the Electoral Office who worked on the system immediately before and during the system failure and in the restoration efforts. We have also recommended that the office of the Organisation of American States be immediately contacted and their assistance sought in supervising all corrective measures to be undertaken at the Electoral Office. We expect that you would be guided accordingly. Respectfully, ……………………………………… Senator George W. Prime Re-printed from NDC news.