Anthea Joseph, Dominica’s Chief Elections Officer, has responded to growing public criticism over the pace of Dominica’s voter confirmation and registration process, insisting that the Electoral Office is prioritising accuracy and integrity as it works through thousands of applications.
Joseph acknowledged that concerns have been raised by members of the public regarding delays in approvals, but explained that every application undergoes multiple layers of verification before being finalised.
“So far, 16,069 persons have applied for confirmation, with a total of 7,248 persons having been approved so far,” Joseph stated while providing an update on the ongoing electoral reform exercise.
She added that an additional 985 people have applied for new registration, with 420 approvals completed to date. According to Joseph, the verification system was intentionally designed to minimize errors and produce a cleaner and more reliable electoral list.
“We have a first layer of verification, a first level, and then a second level of verification,” she explained. “What we are trying to do, we want to ensure that when that list is printed, that names are correctly spelled, that there are no errors on the list.”
Joseph said the Electoral Office is aware of the frustration being expressed by applicants and confirmed that additional measures are now being introduced to speed up processing.
Among the changes announced are an increase in the number of second-level verifiers and new internal systems intended to allow faster approvals by the Chief Elections Officer herself.
“We have put measures in place to increase the numbers at the end of the month,” she said, noting that under the revised system, she expects to process at least 100 approvals daily.
Based on current projections, Joseph indicated that more than 2,000 additional applications could potentially be approved over a standard 21-working-day period if the upgraded process operates as planned.
She maintained that while efficiency remains important, the Electoral Office does not want to repeat problems associated with inaccuracies and inconsistencies that affected previous voters lists.
“We want to ensure that the list is truly cleansed, and that it is almost error-free,” Joseph stated.
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