Premier McKeeva Bush announced on May 5 that the Government has decided to declare July 18, 2012 a public holiday in order to facilitate the holding of the referendum on single member constituencies. There are a number of logistic reasons why a public holiday is necessary that include the police and the significant number of people that is needed to run the polling process.

Premier Bush said that “in order to have sufficient personnel to work in the polling process people will have to be off from work. The RCIPS will be using Special Constables; civil servants and private sector workers will be utilized as election officers and people will also be recruited as observers and scrutineers during the referendum process. In order to ensure the smooth running of the referendum process it was thought best to declare July 18th a public holiday.”