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Tonight election fever is at a furious pitch all across the country - as the polls for a double municipal and general election open in a matter of hours.

In the general election, 178,054 (one-hundred and seventy-eight thousand and fifty-four) voters are eligible to vote for 74 PUP, UDP, VIP, Belize Unity Alliance and Independent Candidates in 31 constituencies at 320 polling stations.

In the municipal elections, 97,979 of those voters are eligible to vote for 170 candidates at 168 of those polling stations.

The center of all the action today was the Headquarters of the elections and boundaries department where about two hundred thousand ballots were distributed to 40 returning officers - under armed guard. Those ballots will be stored overnight at secure locations for the opening of polls at 7:00 am. This evening, the Chief Elections Officer - who is at the center of a well-tuned machine right now, told us how it's going and what her only concern is:

Josephine Tamai - Chief Elections Officer
"Well, at Elections and Boundaries right now, we're in full gear for elections tomorrow. We've already distributed all our supplies country-wide. All the ballot papers have been secured - they're issued already, because we need to have them in place by tomorrow. We know that the polls open up at 7, so the officers will be out very early. So, in terms of our preparations, we are ready; we're just waiting for tomorrow."

Jules Vasquez
"How many things are in motion to make tomorrow's election possible?"

Josephine Tamai
"Well, in terms of that, what we do is that we have the Returning Officers and the Presiding Officers, who are the ones who issue the ballot papers - they are the ones who come to our offices to collect those ballot papers. What they do is to take it a secure place - which we won't disclose - so that tomorrow morning, they could have them in hand for them to distribute. So in terms of the number of persons coming in, it's for each division, it's the Returning Officer, the Election Clerk, and the Presiding Officer. Here at the department, what they do is that they go through each and every single book to verify that all the ballot papers are accounted for, and that they signed off on it."

Jules Vasquez
"How many public officers will be deployed tomorrow to facilitate the election?"

Josephine Tamai
"In terms of the public officers, we have almost 3,000 because it's a large amount, and we also have the police officers who are also public officer as well."

Jules Vasquez
"And that is a larger number because it's a double election."

Josephine Tamai
"Yes, it's because it's a double election, so we have to double up all our efforts throughout the country."

Jules Vasquez
"Okay, now everything has come down to this - months of planning and preparation. Are you confident that everything that you planned is in as good a position as possible, and that things will go smoothly tomorrow?"

Josephine Tamai
"Yes, I am sure that things will go smoothly because like I said, these are preparations that have been done well in advanced. All the stations have been checked, and the only thing that I might want to say might be a challenge - well not for the department, but in terms of voters coming out - with the weather and everything, we're hoping, and we want the voters to actually come out and cast their ballots so that we may have a high voter turn-out this year."

And indeed, we all hope for a good turnout - after all, it's a public and bank holiday - there's no reason not to vote - and if you're worrying about the weather - we'll have the forecast on that a little later.