ST JAMES, Jamaica — After casting his ballot this morning at the Mount Salem Junior High School, People’s National Party (PNP) candidate for the St James West Central constituency seat, Andre Haughton expressed confidence in his chances of defeating the incumbent Marlene Malahoo Forte of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

“It (chances) looks pretty good from my point of view. It is looking good for me and the People’s National Party,” Dr Haughton told reporters.

“I voted around 10:00 am. I am very elated, this is the first time I am voting and representing a group of people from St James West Central, who have done us very proud. I am really looking forward to see the results later.”

Long queues wiggled their way from outside the school gate to the polling station in Mount Salem where some people were heard complaining bitterly over the long wait.

Dr Haughton expressed that the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for the introduction of electronic voting system to allow people to vote for the candidate of their choice wherever they are located across the island, without having to physically vote at a polling station in their constituency.

“We have observed lengthy waits for persons to vote and we have observed that too many questions are being asked. There needs to be quicker verification for the people in order to get them to vote. And I guess it is time for Jamaica now to become modern.

“I think that now electronic voting should come into play. I think that now there should be a way to vote anywhere you are in the country for your respective MP that you want to vote for and I think right now is for us to modernise and this COVID 19 windows has shown us this and we must act upon it,” Dr Haughton said.

At one stage voting was temporarily ceased after sanitisers ran out.

Horace Hines