On June 30, 2026, Dominican public figure Gregor Nassief delivered an open letter to the Chairman of Dominica’s Electoral Commission, Duncan Stowe, and Chief Elections Officer Anthea Joseph, demanding a full public accounting of the body’s handling of the 2025 landmark electoral reform legislation. The letter raises 20 targeted questions addressing persistent legal and procedural gaps that have sown widespread public uncertainty around upcoming elections, including the pending Roseau North by-election, and the overall integrity of the island’s electoral system.
In 2025, Dominica’s legislature passed two sweeping pieces of electoral reform: the *Registration of Electors Act 2025* and the *House of Assembly Elections Act 2025*. The new framework introduced a series of critical changes designed to strengthen electoral credibility: a system of continuous voter registration, a formal confirmation process for existing registered voters, expanded powers to investigate voter residency compliance, a mandate for issuing official voter ID cards, updated rules governing polling conduct, equal access requirements for state-owned media, clearer definitions of electoral offenses, and formal accreditation processes for independent election observers. To date, Nassief argues, the Electoral Commission has failed to implement these reforms in a transparent, lawful, and independent manner, leaving core legal questions unanswered.
Nassief’s first set of questions centers on voter registration, local elections, and voter ID card distribution. He questions why the commission suspended all new voter registration from March 19, 2025, to March 9, 2026, despite the 2025 act explicitly establishing a regime of continuous registration, and why the public received no advance warning that the body was unprepared to roll out the new law. He also asks the commission to publicly assess how this suspension impacted local government elections held during the period, which the new law explicitly covers. Additional questions address the ongoing failure to issue required voter ID cards to approved registrants, despite the law mandating ID issuance and framing oath-based voting at polling places as a limited exception, not a permanent replacement, and why the commission failed to alert parliament and the public of its lack of operational readiness before the law entered into force.
A second block of questions probes allegations of political interference and threats to the commission’s institutional independence. Nassief asks whether the commission itself formally requested external electoral assistance from the Commonwealth Secretariat, Organization of American States, Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, and CARICOM, or whether the request originated from the prime minister’s office. He also asks what objective legal criteria the commission will use to decide whether to extend the voter confirmation period, a power the 2025 law vests exclusively in the commission. He further demands clarity on whether the recent change allowing birth certificates as an alternative form of voter identification originated from the commission or was ordered by the prime minister, and how the decision was formally documented.
Questions related to upcoming general election preparations and longstanding electoral integrity concerns follow. Nassief asks what proactive measures the commission will take to detect and deter common electoral offenses such as bribery, voter treating, and undue influence before the next vote, and how it will enforce the new law’s requirement for equal access to state-owned media for all competing parties. He also presses for details on the concrete procedures the body has put in place to verify that all registered voters meet the legal residency requirement for their polling district, including removing voters who primarily reside overseas from the rolls through fair, lawful processes that allow affected voters to contest decisions. Nassief asks the commission to publicly commit that only voters meeting all legal eligibility requirements, including residency, will be permitted to vote in future elections, barring narrow statutory exceptions.
The letter dedicates seven questions specifically to preparations for the upcoming Roseau North by-election, the first major electoral contest to be held under the new 2025 framework. Nassief asks the commission to confirm which version of the voter register will be used for the by-election, consistent with the legal requirements laid out in the *Registration of Electors Act*, how the register will be compiled, certified, and shared transparently with candidates, parties, and the public, and what the legal cut-off date will be for new registrations, additions, deletions, and appeals before the vote. He also highlights the major legal and operational risk created by the ongoing failure to issue voter ID cards, asking how the commission will avoid turning the exception of oath-based voting into the norm for the by-election, and what special measures it will put in place to ensure the contest adheres to all new statutory rules for voter ID, residency verification, anti-corruption, and media access. Finally, he asks whether the commission will accredit independent domestic and reputable international observer missions to monitor the by-election, and how it will ensure external technical assistance preserves, rather than undermines, its institutional independence from executive influence.
The final questions address progress on voter registration and confirmation. Nassief asks the commission to publicly confirm or deny independent estimates that put Dominica’s voting-age resident population at approximately 55,000, and to publish its own population estimate alongside its methodology so the public can assess whether the emerging voter register aligns with the actual eligible population. He also asks whether the commission realistically expects to complete the voter confirmation process by October 14, 2026, the statutory deadline, in a manner that will meet public confidence standards, or whether an extension will be required.
Closing the letter, Nassief emphasizes that all 20 questions go to the core of whether the Electoral Commission is upholding its constitutional and statutory duties with the independence, competence, and transparency that the Dominican people are entitled to expect. He notes that public distrust in the electoral system is rooted in longstanding concerns: lingering questions about voter list integrity, inconsistent enforcement of residency rules, the failure to issue mandated voter ID cards, and doubts about whether the commission can administer upcoming elections in a lawful and credible manner. These concerns are not unfounded, he argues: in a 2022 judgment stemming from litigation over the 2019 general election, the Caribbean Court of Justice – Dominica’s highest appellate court – highlighted “areas of grave concerns about how the process of these elections was conducted” and emphasized that future Dominican elections “ought not to proceed with these or similar taints.”
Nassief argues that instead of addressing these historic weaknesses with urgency and accountability, the rollout of the 2025 reform laws has only generated prolonged uncertainty around registration, confirmation, ID cards, and implementation. Dominican voters are entitled to clear answers about whether the commission understands its legal duties, whether it will exercise its statutory powers independently of political pressure, and whether it can deliver a lawful, fair election that earns public confidence. A prompt, substantive public response to these questions is not just a matter of transparency, Nassief concludes, it is essential to protecting the fundamental legitimacy of Dominica’s electoral process.
