As we reported last week, the PUP recall petition for Elvin Penner in Cayo Northeast was rejected. The party came 79 approved signatures short of reaching the 30% threshold needed to trigger a recall. Since then, the elections and boundaries office has come under heavy criticism from the PUP for playing politics. Today the Department held a press conference in Belize City to defend its work, and explain why they had to write off over 300 signatures. Jules Vasquez reports:
Jules Vasquez Reporting
These are the signatures that 50 staffers, including 8 very senior public officers pored over between November 28 and December 30th. They worked right through the holidays and found that
1665 signatures were acceptable, 523 signatures did not match, 52 were not registered in Cayo Northeast, 52 were not registered at all, 11 of the petitions had no signature at all, and 79 petitioners signed twice while four signed three times:
Dealing with the 52 signatures which do not match – and generally, almost universally, there's a great disparity between signatures, which on the record may have appeared in a fluid cursive hand, but appeared in rough, block letters on the recall petition.
These were outright rejected but with expert input from a forensic analyst
Josephine Tamai - Chief Elections Officer
"Ms. Genoveva Marin, forensic analyst, assisted with the questionable signatures. As a forensic analyst, signature verification is a function and responsibility which she officially conducts in the performance of her duties. Additionally, Ms. Marin conducts scientific examinations, including examining signatures and documents for both civil and criminal investigations."
For the thumbprint impressions, the CIB office was called in – and because the prints weren't properly taken, the office had to go speak personally to the elected voters to find out if they had indeed given their print. All but one of the 52 had.
Josephine Tamai
"In respect of the thumb impressions which were presented, assistance was sought from the Criminal Investigations Branch (CIB) of the police department. They assisted with verification of these thumb impressions. Due to the fact that many of the fingerprinting were not properly taken, it was difficult to verify the fingerprints through that process. As a result, investigations had to be conducted for those petitioners whose signature were either a thumbprint or an 'x'. During the investigation process, persons were interviewed personally."
The PUP is most disturbed by the 83 signatures which were in duplicate and triplicate. And while you can go into why such duplicates exist, the 83 stings because, the petition came79 approved signatures of passing the threshold – and clearly here were 83 people who signed for a recall but they did it more than once:
Mike Rudon - Channel 5 News
"If they signed on it, and their signatures matched, then wouldn't it have made sense to accept one set of those signatures?"
Josephine Tamai
"Well remember, at the end of the day, according to the act as well, those persons have committed and offense. Once you signed more than once, twice, three times, those are all more than once."
Mike Rudon
"Yes ma'am, but commit an offence then they can be prosecuted, but their signatures were on the - does it call for them to be rejected because they signed more than once?"
Josephine Tamai
"Yes, you commit an offence."
Mike Rudon
"Yes, they were there more than once, as your record show, but they were there. They did sign on that petition."
Josephine Tamai
"But, like I said, you committed and offence."
Mike Rudon
"I understand that, ma'am, you've said that 3 times, but does that mean that because you committed and offence, where does it say that your signature then is rejected because you committed and offence?"
Josephine Tamai
"You won't see that anywhere similarly to how you won't see it saying that you accept it."
Jules Vasquez
"By sticking to the strict letter of the law, have they made the perfect the enemy of the good, in so far as, clearly the spirit of the law is that the people's will, if it is their will for a recall, should be recognized? However, if we add a standard of perfection to it, and then it undermines the good, which is always the people's will."
Josephine Tamai
"I won't be naive in saying that it is not a concern. This is something about the people; it's not about the Election and Boundaries Department, or anybody else. It's about the will of the people, like you mentioned, if these petitions properly vetted, and went through all those things, then I don't think that we should have found so many - no signature - people not in the division. I must tell you the political parties have that information. Checks could have been done similar to what we did. So, we find that some of the things that were presented, personally, I think that it could have been proven a little bit."
So then the onus is with the PUP, which as the Chief Election Officer suggested, submitted a sloppy petition – and the party can't re-submit it:
Alindy Marisol Amaya - KREM Radio News
"In terms of re-submitting the same petition with the signatures they believe would be the correct ones, or the ones that would match, what would be the process?"
Josephine Tamai
"Well, to simply answer your question, I will just read from Section 3, subsection 5 in the Act which states, 'No petition for the recall of a member under this act shall be presented', and C says, 'more than once in the same division in any parliamentary term.'"
So that's it – Elvin Penner has dodged a recall - until and unless this outcome is challenged in court. And while he is spared, Tamia says it's not political
Josephine Tamai
"At the end of the day, we're mandated to carry out this exercise in accordance with the recall elected representative act, so it doesn't matter who the government is, or who presented the petition."
Alberto Vellos - Belize Times Press
"Can you go on the record that at no point, there was any sort of pressure or interference, politically?"
Josephine Tamai
"I will go on record to say that there was never any interference. As we mentioned, we had very senior public officers assigned to assist the Department."
George Myvette - Senior Public Officer
"There is a cadre of professional people who take their job pretty seriously, who will not be compromised. This was the team that effectively wrested with this particular assignment."
The PUP will have a press conference tomorrow, we expect to respond to the Elections and Boundaries office. The party claims to have vetted signatures for about a month.
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