Voting in an election locally is well on its way to being more equitable than it has ever been before, Senators said yesterday as they passed the Parliamentary Election Amendment Act 2003 and the Parliamentary Election Amendment Rules 2003.

The Acts provide will provide the Island with single seat constituencies and one person, one vote, each vote of equal value.

"This is very important stuff we're doing," said independent Sen. Walwyn Hughes. "And you have to give credit to the PLP who have stuck to their guns on this one. And the clarion call they've consistently made through the years."

They provide for 36 single seat constituencies, allow out of date identification to be used as long as it has a photo by which the person can be identified, a birth date that the returning officer can verify and the person's signature. The amendments also allow those people who are travelling on election day to vote ahead of time and the rules expand identification to include company IDs. The company IDs must specify the date of issue, have the full name of the person, their photo and their date of birth.

Government leader in the Senate Sen. David Burch moved the Acts through the Upper House with a brief but quite detailed history of the franchise in Bermuda. Starting with Bermuda's first Parliament in 1960 where only people with a certain amount of property were allowed to vote, through the Bermuda Women's Suffrage Society in 1923, the Committee for Universal Adult Suffrage in 1960 up to today which he described as "the culmination of 40 years of diligent work by the Progressive Labour Party.''

Labelling the day as historic because of the passage of the Act, Sen. Burch said: "I can barely contain my joy and would like to end where I began - by paying tribute to those farsighted and courageous Bermudians who in 1963 dreamed of a truly democratic Bermuda, where class and station, family and inheritance, property and wealth, colour nor creed, did not set you higher than the rest of us."

Sen. Burch also said that he felt "privileged" to have lived to see the Act come to pass and said he was "honoured to be piloting" it through the Upper House.

In stark contrast to the tone of Sen. Burch's comments, Opposition Senate Leader Sen. Kim Swan blamed the Premier for problems he said surrounded the subject. He said that he and the Opposition were in support of single seat constituencies but did not approve of the way in which Government made the decision.

He reiterated the United Bermuda Party's view that the issue should have gone first to a constitutional conference and then to referendum. He said Government was wrong in not educating the public as to what `one man, one vote' means and held that, that confused the general.

He said the UBP actually led the way by holding public meetings on the topic before the Government and noted that among the 8,500 signatures on the petition taken to the UK, were several PLP members and stalwarts.

"Thirty-six seats was as fair a result as Bermuda could have hoped for," he said, " but we lost the opportunity for real democracy because of the petitions."

PLP Sen. Calvin Smith deflated Sen. Swan's argument on signatures saying that the list should have been a great deal longer if all UBP supporters supported it. "Why were there not more signatures? I'm sure you have more than 8,000 or so supporters," he said.

And PLP Sen. Victoria Pearman told Sen. Swan that it was news to her that the UBP were in favour of single seat constituencies. "This must be a new revolution for his party because no one ever said `we are for single seat constituencies, we just don't like the process'," she said.

Sen. Pearman told Sen. Swan that although he might not like the idea that his party "is not about increasing the franchise and the democratic process in this country."

Independent Sen. Jeannette Cannonier said she had no problems with the legislation and complimented Sen. Burch on his introduction, asking him for a copy of his speech as she said it would make a handy reference document.

She praised Government for amending identification documents to include those that are out of date. And said that having been a returning officer in several elections, she knew first hand that this was a move in the right direction, she also said she was impressed with the inclusion of people travelling on early morning or late night flights had been addressed.

"I believe the last election was the first time this happened," she said. "You know they say `a new broom sweeps clean', well the (Parliamentary) Registrar's Office obviously had some input here.

Independent Sen. Walwyn Hughes said that Bermuda is a sophisticated country that has come a long way with respect to the franchise and he said clearly there was more to come. "I think it is important to have enough people in Parliament to represent different views or else it could be overpowering." But he said that not everything had been revealed. "There are still some things that need to be addressed," he said. "What will happen in the Senate? We will have to stay tuned."