Peter Espeut | Monitoring modern elections

Today we are faced with election results showing only a small minority of those on the voters list turning up to cast their votes; but I am old enough to remember a time when after the count was complete, more than 100 per cent of the registered voters were recorded as having cast their vote in certain boxes (and even whole seats); I recall victories by 102 per cent and even 106 per cent of the vote.

In those days the presiding officers and poll clerks were recommended (selected?) by the dominant candidate, and they knew what their task was: to ensure that their patron won – by any means necessary, including what became known as “ballot-stuffing” and “over-voting”.

You couldn’t avoid seeing it when it topped 100 per cent; but if the stuffed ballots totalled less than 100 per cent over-voting could not easily be detected; this is why I always claimed that many of the partisan ballot-stuffers were innumerate – and probably illiterate as well. Applying simple math skills would have made their electoral malfeasance almost undetectable.

If a ballot box is in the custody of a presiding officer from beginning to end, and more than 100 per cent of the possible votes end up in that box, should that person be held accountable? You would think so – if ethics and morality mean anything.

DO NOT MEAN MUCH

But we come to learn that when it comes to electoral matters in Jamaica, ethics and morality do not mean much. I cannot recall any presiding officer being asked to account for the extra votes in a ballot box while in their custody, never mind facing the courts for electoral fraud, or as an accomplice to electoral fraud. The candidates supported their agents well, and the different elements in the justice system co-operated; and I do not know of anyone ever being held accountable for “ballot-stuffing” or “over-voting” in Jamaica.

I remember asking a member of parliament (MP) who had a few such overvoted boxes in his constituency, how he could have allowed such a thing, and his answer was that he had enthusiastic supporters who acted on their own and not because of any instructions from him.

If ethics and morality mean anything, politicians who see that happening under their watch to damage their reputation, would keep far away from “enthusiastic” supporters like that!

There simply was no political will to put an end to ballot-stuffing and over-voting because the politicians were behind it!

I was a member – at the highest level – of the short-lived New Beginning Movement, founded by members with troubled consciences from all the major political movements in the country at the time. And in our catharsis-driven moments of true confessions, stories of ballot-stuffing and other types of fraud and thuggery would be told. When I write in this space that both major political parties are evil, I refer to things I have heard from the horse’s mouth.

EYES AND EARS

Well, along came the Electoral Advisory Commission (now the Electoral Commission of Jamaica) and that kind of voter fraud has all but disappeared. Also to emerge was CAFFE – Citizens’ Action for Free and Fair Elections – which placed eyes and ears in polling stations to observe and record in minute detail the actual procedures followed. In years gone by, I was a CAFFE observer in several elections, and was not obstructed by the authorities in any way; I gather that things have changed.

CAFFE provides longitudinal micro-observations in particular polling stations from before voting begins to the preliminary count, as opposed to the tourist election observers who visit many polling stations across a wide area, each for a few minutes. It is unlikely that observer tourism will detect many election malpractices; no electoral criminal would be foolish enough to do anything irregular in front of the foreign observers; we must credit them with that much intelligence!

CAFFE’s methodology is designed to detect breaches of procedure which may reflect malpractice. This wholly Jamaican organization – with profound moral and ethical foundations – must be supported, not hindered in its work. Foreign tourist observers we must always welcome; but the micro-observation that CAFFE provides is essential, and we can expect that it will be resisted at every opportunity.

Electoral malpractice today is not the same as it was 30 or 40 years ago. Much of it takes place before election day, and CAFFE’s present methods cannot detect it. Rumours of vote buying (paying people FOR your vote) and voter suppression (paying people you NOT to vote) abound, and I have been told things – hearsay I agree – by many.

But if there was the will – political or otherwise – to get concrete evidence of transactional voting – or lack thereof – it could be done. Persons could put themselves in the way if having their votes bought or suppressed in sting operations. You could go to court with that!

The politicians won’t do it, and the police won’t do it. Only a new type of civil society activism will make Jamaican elections reflect the will of the people, and not the will of the politicians and their private sector backers who provide the funding for vote buying and voter suppression.

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and development scientist. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com