The Electoral Commission under the chairmanship of Sir Howard Fergus hosted another radio program in an ongoing education and information program. This time Sir Howard and his team member Bennette Roach and Senior Commissions Analyst, Mrs. Shivonne White, who serves the Commissions addressed with an attempt at providing more clarity on the issue ‘domicile’ as the voter registration continues, and enumeration is about to commence.
The issue raised questions and there were several callers to the program. As he explained in some detail the issue Sir Fergus presented the following:
“If a Montserratian comes back Domicile of Origin kicks in, if you are living abroad you are a ordinary resident abroad you have a Domicile of choice and Domicile of origin goes into abeyance and into the background until you return. You can’t have domicile of choice and domicile of origin at the same time. When a Montserratian comes back and establishes that he or she is going to be living here then domicile of origin kicks in, this is not somebody who is coming to vote to go back to live abroad.”
He continued as he pointed out that one’s intention is important to the determination of domicile. “The whole business of intentionality is very important in this business of defining Domicile. The people who come here to Montserrat and they want to qualify they could show that even they haven’t been here for thirty six months they can claim domicile of choice because of a number of factors, they are paying taxes here. Say that they have a home, they have property, they have children at school, a whole set of criteria and plus what the person is saying. You interview them, you’re taking what people are saying as well about their intention and their plans.”
He noted, “…and the whole idea is not to deprive people of the right to vote , the whole idea is to allow people to vote.”
Meanwhile, the issue and the process of enumeration was also presented. The electoral members announced that a house to house enumeration exercise is due to begin in June to ensure all persons who are eligible to vote are registered.
Notwithstanding that persons have been registering in the continuous mode, the electoral commission is asking people to cooperate by giving the enumerators the required information. The enumeration exercise which is held every five years will run from June 1to August 31 this year. It is overdue as it should have been held in 2010. It required the Governor in Council to so deem this year appropriate.
““It’s a kind of census of voters if you like,” Sir Howard said, pointing out “it is a very important exercise and in fact there’ll be groups of three or four persons coming around to the different homes and ensuring that everybody is listed who wishes to vote and who is qualified to be a voter.”
Craving the cooperation of the public, they were told, “We want the cooperation of the entire public for everyone who is eligible to vote to be registered.”
