Bahamians will soon have a better idea how each other voted in the May 7 General Election.
Parliamentary Commissioner Errol Bethel yesterday told the Bahama Journal that his team is crunching the numbers in preparation to release the vote count by polling division.
There were 500 polling divisions in the recent election.
“As you know, we’ve done each constituency already, so now we are breaking the numbers down to find out how many people voted at each polling division and which party or candidate they voted for,” he said.
“People always want to see exactly what happened in each area of their constituency and how the people voted and how votes were higher here or lower elsewhere.”
Last week, department officials released the overall constituency figures, which saw the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) capture 29 seats and the Free National Movement (FNM) nine seats.
A margin of more than 10,000 separated the political heavyweights.
Branville McCartney’s Democratic National Alliance (DNA) captured 13,186 votes nationwide.
The figures also revealed that the independent candidates got a total of 1,294, or 0.83 per cent of the overall votes, while a total of 90.5 per cent of the 172,000 registered voters cast ballots overall.
Mr. Bethel said it is important for these polling division numbers to be released as it gives candidates, parties and the country a more scientific analysis of how Bahamians voted and which parties were more popular in certain areas, adding that political parties, their strategists and pundits use the information for future election cycles.
“We started the cycle around late last week and we are hoping to release the results soon,” he added.
“We are also working out the percentages to find out how many votes each candidate got, which lends to figuring out who will receive that $400 deposit.
Election candidates are required to pay $400 cash deposit in Bahamian currency as well as present a declaration of their financial assets and liabilities as outlined in the Public Disclosure Act.
However, only candidates who capture one-sixths of the votes cast in the election would be refunded.
