Bermuda’s Parliamentary office has labelled Opposition MP Patricia Gordon-Pamplin’s claim on alleged sharing of voters’ information with the Progressive Labour Party as “inaccurate statements”.
Yesterday the One Bermuda Alliance renewed the charges at a news conference.
One day later, the registrar’s office released a statement saying that the matter had already been dealt by Governor John Rankin.
The OBA also called for a report on the matter to be made public., claiming it appeared that voter contact details had been shared with the PLP over the past five years.
Back in 2012, the registrar, Tenia Woolridge, found that the then registrar Randy Scott, provided the details in response to a PLP request.
Once it was brought to her attention, Ms Woolridge said she “took immediate steps” to stop it.
The Parliamentary Registrar’s Office issued the following statement today:
“The Parliamentary Registrar’s Office would like to inform the public, that four days prior to the last General Election the OBA raised their concerns with respect to the sharing of voter information by the Parliamentary Registrar. Less than two weeks after the election, the OBA felt it necessary to write directly to His Excellency the Governor, John Rankin CMG, about this matter.
“The office of the Parliamentary Registry falls under the supervision of His Excellency the Governor, who has responded directly to the OBA regarding this matter. Therefore, as far as the Parliamentary Registry is concerned this matter was appropriately dealt with by His Excellency in his letter to the OBA communicating the results of the Parliamentary Registrar’s review.
“The points of the Parliamentary Registrar’s review, as communicated by His Excellency were:
• The Parliamentary Registrar did not issue any authorisation to share voter contact information and there was no evidence of infiltration of the voter database by unauthorised access
• The review determined that the provision of the information requested was approved in 2012 by the then Parliamentary Registrar acting in his discretion
• Once this information sharing was brought to the Parliamentary Registrar’s attention she took immediate steps to shut it down.
“His Excellency has more recently requested a correction of inaccurate statements made on the floor of the House of Assembly by the former Opposition Leader on June 8, 2018 in respect to this very issue. The request made by the Governor, is still an outstanding matter for action by the former Opposition Leader.
“Until such statements are corrected, the Parliamentary Registrar is not prepared to respond further to comments made via press release by the former Opposition Leader that builds on inaccuracies already released to the public on the floor of the House of Assembly.”
