KINGSTON, Jamaica — With roughly four hours to go before the polls close, Director of Elections Orrette Fisher is hoping that Jamaicans will continue turning out to cast their vote.

So far, a reported 289,049 of enumerated Jamaicans have turned out to participate in Jamaica’s 17th general election process.

The electoral proceedings so far, according to Fisher, have been largely incident-free.

“We have had reports of persons being asked to remove party paraphernalia before entering the polling stations and there are a couple of people who should have voted on Monday who did not vote,” Fisher said. “So they are complaining their names are not on the list and when we do the check, we found out that they were policemen who should have voted on Monday.”

He said although it is still relatively early, he is proud of the work being done so far by election day workers despite the pressures of planning for a highly anticipated election.

“In terms of the electoral office, in support of the workers, we are just hoping for an incident-free day where persons who turn out will vote peacefully and at the end of the day we can tally the votes and provide that to the nation and the nation will know just exactly who they chose,” he told the press. 

Javene Skyers