By Gregor Nassief
The August 20, 2026 press conference by the Electoral Commission and Electoral Office was important. For months I have been calling on them to face the public, answer questions and explain what has gone wrong with the implementation of our new electoral laws.
Today they finally did, and many of the concerns that have been raised were confirmed by their own answers. But this is no time to revisit my calls for a reset of the Commission or for resignations, however vindicated I believe those calls were by what we heard today.
The clock is running. So my message to every eligible Dominican is simple: Confirm now. Register now. Follow up now. Make sure you are approved. Do not wait for October.
The Electoral Office reported that 22,242 persons have applied for confirmation, but only 20,455 have been approved. Another 1,999 have applied for new registration, of whom 1,728 have been approved. More than 2,000 applications therefore remained unapproved at the time of the press conference.
The Chief Elections Officer explained that applications can remain pending for a variety of reasons during the two-stage verification process. When repeatedly asked whether everyone applying before the deadline could be assured of being approved in time, there was no such guarantee. Instead, we were told that the Office is trying to keep up and will even work extended hours on the final day.
That is the warning. Application is not approval. Tick tock. Tick tock.
Then came the admissions of errors.
A deceased elector appeared on a published confirmation list. The explanation: a “glitch in the system.” Duplicate entries also appeared because software filters failed.
The Chairman acknowledged that electoral lists were published without electors’ addresses despite this information being required. His reaction: “I hung my head in shame.”
An official election form still showed the old $500 candidate deposit when the new law requires $1,000, and now has to be reprinted.
And voter identification cards—which should have been part of this system from the commencement of confirmation in October 2025—are only now beginning to be printed and distributed in selected constituencies.
Remember also where we came from. Continuous voter registration was effectively unavailable for 355 consecutive days, from March 19, 2025 to March 9, 2026, during which local government elections were nevertheless held. Yet there was still no real institutional ownership or apology today for that extraordinary failure.
But perhaps the clearest demonstration of unreadiness came from Roseau North itself.
The Chairman explained that, in preparing for this by-election, the Commission identified two fundamental defects requiring amendments to the electoral laws.
First, under the original framework, a person could have been properly registered before the writ was issued yet still be excluded because his or her registration fell after the last published supplementary list. The law therefore had to be amended.
Second, the Commission realised that although the law had always contemplated an election being held during the confirmation period, electors entitled to vote might not yet possess the voter ID cards contemplated by the new system. The identification provisions therefore also had to be amended.
The law always contemplated an election during confirmation. Yet it was only as the first parliamentary election under the new framework approached that two fundamental problems affecting who could vote and how electors could identify themselves had to be corrected through legislative amendment. That is not evidence of a system that was fully ready. It is evidence of a system still being corrected as it is being used.
And then there are transfers. We were told that transfers are not being processed during confirmation. After confirmation ends, electors may apply to transfer—but according to the Chief Elections Officer, those transfers would only be reflected on the relevant list in September 2027. When asked whether that meant a person could not vote in the new constituency until then, the answer was effectively yes. September 2027.
How can a supposedly modernised electoral system require a citizen who legitimately changes constituency to potentially wait until September of next year before that change is reflected for voting purposes?
The way these lists are being managed—with different lists produced at different intervals, transfers effectively frozen, information not reflected in real time, and special legislative amendments needed to bridge obvious gaps—looks like almost anything but modernisation. I have spent much of my life watching technology make processes faster, more accurate and more accessible. Never have I seen technology apparently take us backward.
And there is another extraordinary feature.
Once a writ is issued, the Electoral Office confirmed that claims and objections cannot be considered until after polling day; names cannot be entered or deleted; and appeals affecting the register cannot be determined until after the election.
Think about the absurdity of that in practice. Suppose an obvious and provable error affecting the register is discovered after the writ. Even if the error is clear, the statutory claims, objections, additions, deletions and appeals process cannot resolve it before polling day. What happens if that very error helps determine the result?
What if one vote—or a handful of votes—changes who becomes the parliamentary representative?
Surely these are precisely the kinds of issues a modernized electoral system should be designed to resolve before people vote, not afterwards.
And all of this brings us back to the October deadline.
The Commission acknowledged that the confirmation period can be extended for up to a period of not more than three months. Yet when the Chairman was directly asked whether the present level of confirmation would influence that decision, his answer was astonishing: “The Commission has not looked at that as yet.” Why not?
More than 2,000 applications remain unapproved. Voter cards are only now being distributed. Software glitches have affected published lists. A deceased person appeared as confirmed. Addresses were omitted. Official forms were wrong. Transfers may not take effect until September 2027. Two laws had to be amended as the first parliamentary election under the new system exposed problems that the original framework should already have anticipated.
If those circumstances do not at least require the Commission to immediately assess the case for an extension, what exactly would? The Commission should conduct that assessment now and publish the criteria on which its decision will be made.
But citizens must not gamble on an extension.
Tick tock. Tick tock.
If you are on the old voters’ list, confirm now.
If you are eligible but not registered, register now.
If you have already applied, follow up now.
Check your status. Correct any problem. Make sure the process is complete.
Whether you eventually vote is your choice. Whom you vote for is entirely your choice.
But you must first protect your ability to make that choice.
There is no time now to wait for the Commission to become more efficient, for the technology to become more reliable, or for every defect in this system to be corrected.
We the people must overwhelm their incompetence and inefficiency with legitimacy, participation, and passion for our democratic process.
Tick tock. Tick tock.
Confirm. Register. Get approved. And be ready to vote.
Respectfully,
Gregor Nassief
Disclaimer
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