ALMOST HALF of the people registered to vote in yesterday’s St James North by-election chose not to vote.
Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley last night admitted it was something she would be seriously looking into, but at the same time said a new census would be needed in Barbados to get a truer picture of how eligible voters are counted in the country.
Her comments came after yesterday’s byelection saw 3 231 valid votes cast. According to the Electoral and Boundaries Commission, there were around 8 500 people registered to vote in the by-election.
Mottley produced different numbers, however, saying her data showed there were just over 6 000 people who could have voted yesterday.
Still, she did not deny the 3 231 people who did place their ‘X’ represented a smaller amount than those who stayed at home.
The Prime Minister revealed the Barbados Labour Party teams actually went into every house, adding that the number of people who live in this constituency was 6 470.
“This is a problem that is a national problem. We need to continue the enumeration exercise. The last time the country had one was in the late 1990s.”
Mottley said that enumeration process would continue this year.
She noted that the country’s electoral list had 261 147 people listed, and in most instances people who live overseas were not removed, and there was some lag to represent those who died.
“The census of Barbados done in 2022 put the population of Barbados at just over 267 000. We have more than 6 000 primary schoolchildren in Barbados, so this tells us that we have a very heavily inflated list.”
She said that based on extrapolation of numbers, the true turnout yesterday was about 50.1 per cent.
“Could it be better? Yes, it could be. I believe that in a constituency where this is now the worst performing result for a Democratic Labour Party candidate in history in this constituency, it makes no noise. Unless you have two sides going toe to toe, you run the risk always of a lower turnout, largely because they are not exciting the base.
We suffered from that, and a by-election usually has less turnout than a general (election),” she said.
She made clear, however, that new Member of Parliament Chad Blackman’s performance and victory were resounding, bearing in mind the votes he received approximated near the vicinity a candidate would get were there a higher turnout. (BA)
