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They did recommend a re-registration exercise, something which was also a suggestion from the 2012 report by the OAS Observers who oversaw that General Elections. So, why was it not acted upon by the Elections and Boundaries Department before Wednesday's General Elections? Well, the Chief Elections Officer told us that they follow the strict schedule set out by the Constitution which says that the exercise will be due in 2017.

Josephine Tamai, Chief Elections Officer
"As the law presently stands, the re-registration exercise is due in July of 2017. So plans are in place to have that exercise. The commission has already made it clear that it is something that needs to get done and they are willing to ensure that it gets done. When we are through with the re-registration exercise, that will good indication in terms of the numbers in each of the electoral division. So again, that will be a good time for us to look at the numbers and see where we need to do the re-districting. But again, yes, that is something that the commission has already indicated that we must do."

A few days before the elections, the Vision Inspired by the People Party and a coalition of independent political activists put the country on notice that they would file an election petition in the Supreme Court. That's because Section 90 of the Constitution makes it mandatory that all of the 31 constituencies must be roughly equivalent in size to allow for proper representation of the people. Right now a there is a huge disparity in the sizes of the constituencies where, for example Belmopan is almost 3 times as large as Fort George.

So, if there is a violation of this law why didn't the Elections and Boundaries Commission take corrective measures? Well, according to the Chief Elections Officer the process of re-districting the constituencies for greater equality takes about a year. She explained that because Prime Minister Dean Barrow called early elections the Commission would not have enough time to do what is necessary to make re-districting possible:

Josephine Tamai, Chief Elections Officer
"In terms of re-districting, that is from the constitution that gives the power to the commission where you are to look at the different numbers every month and see where there is inequity. Because it is supposed to be as nearly as equal as possible considering all the geographic transportation and all those issues. So that does not have a specific timeframe to say this is when this is done. As long as there is not an equal balance, then you are required to look at it to recommend the re-districting."

Daniel Ortiz
"Why couldn't you have got it done before this election?"

Josephine Tamai, Chief Elections Officer
"You know election wasn't due until 2017. So we were not aware that an election would have been held at this point in time. But it is something that we had already started to look at, but just like I mention it's a long lengthy tedious process that we have to go through in order to ensure some equity in what is being done."

Daniel Ortiz
"Has the commission in the past year - two years looked at the number of voters registered in the different constituencies and seen any degree of inequity that they were concern about. Because from what we see some constituencies have 9,000, some have 3,000. It seems to be a great disparity."

Josephine Tamai, Chief Elections Officer
"I wouldn't want to speak in terms of the commission. Because the chairman of the commission would be able to speak in terms of what it is that the commission actually looked at. I will tell you that yes the commission - we've provide those statistics to the each month and they are the ones who would look at it and yes I had made recommendations to them and like said it's something that we already started to look at the process to see how we move forward."

Tamai also told us that it is more efficient to undertake re-registration and then re-districting. So, both processes will happen in 2017.