Electoral Office says strict verification is causing delays, with more than 16,000 voter applications received and thousands already approved.
Dominica: The Chief Election Officer, Anthia Joseph, has defended the pace of the voter confirmation process and the registration of the voters, stating that the pace is due to the rigorous verification process which requires multiple checks to ensure that everything is up to standard. She has informed the public that the Electoral Office has heard their concerns and is currently implementing a few measures to streamline the process for the voters.
According to Chief Officer Joseph, as of May 7, 2026, a total of 16,069 voters have applied for the confirmation process, 7,214 of which have already been approved. Moreover, 985 individuals have applied for the registration process and 425 have been approved thus far.
Joseph has explained that the public has been raising their concerns stating that the verification process is “slow”. Noting their concerns, she outlined the steps the applications go through before they can be approved, stating that there are two levels of verification process.
She added, this is due to the accuracy that the Electoral Office wishes to have when printing the final list, sharing that the office aims for it to be error free and that the problems experienced in the previous years don’t reoccur.
“We want to ensure that when that list is printed, the names are correctly spelled, that there are no errors on the list and that we do not have the problems that existed before. We want to ensure that the end of the period, when the final list is printed, that it is almost error free and that we have done a proper job in cleansing the list,” shared Chief Election Officer Joseph.
She further added that the Electoral Office of Dominica has put a few measures meant to streamline the confirmation processes, one of which includes the office increasing the number of verifiers.
Anthia Joseph has also stated that measures have also been put in place to ensure that she approves the applications faster, informing that at least 100 approvals are being done daily which will greatly impact the process moving forward.
“We have put measures in place to increase the numbers at the end of the month. That is, we have increased the number of second level verifiers, and we have also put in place some measures to allow myself to do fast approvals. Going forward, the backlog will be taken care of quickly, as it stands now, I can at least do 100 approvals in a day," stated Anthia Joseph.