Attorney General, Sen. Hon. Ryan Pinder addressed the accuracy of the current register while contributing to debate on the Data Protection Bill in the Senate on Monday.

Pinder told Senators, “both the PLP and the FNM in our canvassing of the constituency, and trust me when the party’s rolled out they had the best canvassers that they have, on both sides, canvassing the constituency, meeting the registered voters or the resident voters, verifying the information, speaking to them, both parties did it, extensively, maybe one better than the other, but needless to say the opposition had their forces out as well. However, neither party in the recent by-election, they said somewhere upwards of 7,900 voters were on the register right, neither party, neither the PLP nor the FNM with all of our extensive canvassers every single day in the constituency, neither party found more than approximately 5,500 voters on the register,”

The uncertainty of the amount of voters in the constituency calls into the question the reported Golden Isles by-election turnout of 49%. Pinder said, “so why was this the case that there were some 2,500 voters on the register that couldn’t be found, by either party. Why is that the case? This is because over the last nine years, since the permanent register was put in place. Remember the former administration put in a permanent register, meaning you don’t have to go and register every election, you’re permanently on the register. They was no active voter transfer initiatives really underway in nine years.”

Parliamentary Commissioner, Harrison Thompson has stated that the register has been updated. He said the clean up process started after the 2021 general election.