JLP chides PNP's Dayton Campbell for integrity lamp comments

The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has cautioned the public to ignore a statement by a senior People’s National Party (PNP) official that PNP election day workers will be issued with integrity lamps to verify the identity of voters.

Jamaicans are set to vote in parliamentary elections next Wednesday.

PNP General Secretary Dr Dayton Campbell, speaking at a political rally on the weekend, announced that the party has purchased integrity lamps that would be distributed to “every single constituency".

The lamps are used to scrutinise the voter identification card presented by an elector at a polling station.

“We have bought integrity lamps for every single constituency so that we are going to train our indoor agents to take your integrity lamps, look pon de voter ID, [and] look fi de security mark,” he said during a mass rally in Mandeville.

However, Tom Tavares-Finson, King’s Counsel, the JLP representative on the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ), chided Campbell for the comments, saying that the PNP general secretary “should know better than this”.

Campbell is also the PNP’s representative on the ECJ.

“No [election-day] worker, PNP or JLP, would be entitled to walk into a polling station with an integrity lamp,” said Tavares-Finson in a statement on Tuesday.

He noted that only one integrity lamp is permitted in each polling station on election day and said this is provided by the Electoral Office.

“It is operated by the presiding officer. Clearly, Campbell’s statement is meant only to sow discord and misinformation among potential voters. It ought to be ignored,” said Tavares-Finson, who is also President of the Senate.

- Livern Barrett

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