The Overseas vote in St. Kitts-Nevis General elections is being looked at by the Team Unity government as part of the process of electoral reform.
On Wednesday’s edition of Issues, Chairperson of the SKNLP, and Member of Parliament for constituency #2, Honorable Marcella Liburd indicated that overseas voters might be disenfranchised by the coalition Team Unity Government.
The overseas vote was introduced by the People’s Action Movement Government in 1984 when the decision was made to include nationals of St. Kitts-Nevis who resided abroad in General elections.
Liburd said now the Team Unity Government figures that this overseas bloc of voters is now against them and so a move is being made to do away and disenfranchise overseas voters.
Liburd further added that the Attorney General’s talk about enumeration and the Register of Voters is aimed in that direction.
Back in November 2016 Queen’s Counsel Charles Wilkin in a commentary urged that the overseas vote be done away with.
Wilkin said “the overseas vote provides in some minds justification, for the abuse of the registration process and that in essence an overseas voter can effectively register wherever he wants”.
Wilkin pondered “why then should a resident voter be limited to registration in the constituency in which he actually resides”.
Wilkin stated that this in itself makes a strong case for the overseas vote to be addressed in an electoral reform process.