Thu | Oct 9, 2025

‘A clean voters’ list is a moral safeguard’

Former director of elections, political commentator and watchdog want more frequent purging of electoral roll

Published:Monday | September 15, 2025 | 12:06 AMErica Virtue/Senior Gleaner Writer
Orette Fisher, former director of elections... ‘Notwithstanding cost, conduct enumeration exercise every 15 years.’
Orette Fisher, former director of elections... ‘Notwithstanding cost, conduct enumeration exercise every 15 years.’
Professor Christopher Charles, UWI professor of political and social psychology ... ‘Accuracy is critical to democracy. Do it every five years.’
Professor Christopher Charles, UWI professor of political and social psychology ... ‘Accuracy is critical to democracy. Do it every five years.’
Glasspole Brown, director of elections... ‘Full purge is under active consideration at ECJ’.
Glasspole Brown, director of elections... ‘Full purge is under active consideration at ECJ’.
Danielle Archer, principal director of NIA... ‘A clean voters list is a moral safeguard. Clean it every two cycles.’
Danielle Archer, principal director of NIA... ‘A clean voters list is a moral safeguard. Clean it every two cycles.’
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Failure by successive administrations to declare an enumeration period in Jamaica, for a complete reverification and purging of the voters’ list has fuelled concerns about the low percentage of the population perceived as having decided who should...

Failure by successive administrations to declare an enumeration period in Jamaica, for a complete reverification and purging of the voters’ list has fuelled concerns about the low percentage of the population perceived as having decided who should form the government in recent elections.

Such a declaration would allow the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ) to conduct a door-to-door exercise to verify every name, and remove who cannot be found from the list which has come under severe scrutiny since the September 3, 2025 general election.

The last reverification exercise was conducted 28 years ago said the former director of elections, Orette Fisher, who has placed on record his view that the list is bloated, and has presented a distorted voter turn-out percentage.

“It is unfair to the administration. I believe that such an exercise should be done every 15 years, maximum. So, at 28 years, we should have completed one, and be preparing to do a second one after this election, and before the next elections are due, despite it coming at huge financial cost,” Fisher told The Gleaner.

Fisher, who served as elections chief for a decade and conducted general election polls in 2011 and 2016, made five proposals which he believed then would have reduced questions about voter turn-out compared to total numbers on the list.

A PowerPoint presentation was prepared for the commissioners of the ECJ who were given copies prior. However, according to Fisher, it was disregarded after a commissioner objected in what he described as “nothing short of grandstanding”.

Reportedly, none of the other members offered support, and the discussion ended abruptly. The ECJ comprises nine members, including four selected (independent) commissioners, four nominated - two representing the prime minister, and two representing the leader of the Opposition, and the director of elections.

PROPOSAL

At the time of Fisher’s proposals, the body was under the chairmanship of Dorothy Pine-McLarty.

Among the proposals was that, “The minister (with responsibility for electoral matters) declares a period of enumeration. Enumerators visit every elector on list. Electors are placed in one of the following categories: (1) elector found at residence (new photograph taken and elector maintained on list) or (2) elector found at different residence (elector transferred to new residence, new photograph taken and elector kept on list).”

If an elector is confirmed as dead, they should be removed from the list.

The other category included: “Elector (is) not found. Given residence is visited three times after which elector is summoned to a returning officers, sitting in the constituency which is used to determine whether elector is removed, or kept on list.”

The “person eligible to be registered, (is) encountered and is registered in keeping with the electoral law”.

In keeping with legal requirements, party scrutineers as provided by the Representation of the People Act (ROPA) accompany enumerators.

Voter turnout of 38 per cent was recorded in the 2020 polls, and 39.5 per cent for the just-concluded polls. The May 2025 voters list had 2,077,799.

Less than a year later, Fisher would resign from his post, citing a “growing level of political influence”, which was documented in a letter to staff. He said former ECJ Chairman Professor Errol Miller would have dismissed the crassness which had begun to engulf the body.

Now an elections consultant, who has offered his expertise worldwide, and especially in the Commonwealth, he said the body’s failure to act then, has caused the questions to linger.

“There would have been no questions about the voting percentage and absolutely no doubt about the legitimacy of the government. Unfortunately, these will be recorded as part of voting history. I say this, because in 2016, more ballots were cast, that is, the number of persons who voted in that election was the highest in any elections in the history of the country…,” Fisher said.

“It (voting percentage) started climbing in 2007. Then it went up in 2011, and in 2016 became the highest ever. The decline in 2020 can be attributed to the pandemic, so this has been a bounce back since COVID, but the voters’ list has been growing, growing, growing, and the percentage going down as you have seen…,” he stated.

The 2022 census exercise, the results of which have been delayed but were last reported to be expected this month, would have counted every Jamaican, but would not influence the numbers on the voters’ list. However, Fisher believes it could still have provided a proper context for discussion.

FUNDED BY THE GOVERNMENT

“An accurate census could have caused some discussion about the list, but it’s two different exercises and for different reasons. What the ECJ should have done is advised the minister of the need for reverification and would have to get the money from the government. It’s the minister who would determine the period of enumeration, but it’s the commission that would initiate the process,” he said.

He added that, when an enumeration is to be held, it has to be declared by the minister and it would be explicitly stated and would run for a period, and extended if necessary but well before an election is due. Up to his departure in 2018, it was not initiated, though two attempts have been made to remove the dead from the list.

Because of significant costs associated with the process, it was decided, and agreed by all concerned, that continuous registration should take place, where eligible voters are added.

The process requires proof of age, and the elector’s place of residence. Individuals should be visited at their place of residence for verification. Importantly, “the registration process is not complete until residences have been verified”.

“During the period of continuous registration, people began to realise that the removal was not taken into consideration, and so there was discussion as to how the list could be cleansed. And the decision was reverification, as a new list would be generated…,” he said.

Returning officers, he said, have the authority to summon individuals to the constituency offices where they are registered for reverification. If, after several attempts, the elector is not found, the returning officer has the authority to effect their removal by notification to the EOJ.

That process remains current.

“Persons who were overseas, who could not be located, were all kept and the list has continued to reflect persons who should have been removed since 1994. Until this is done, we are going to continue getting skewed voting turnout,” he stated.

The November 30, 2016 voters’ list was published on December 31, 2016 with a total of 1,870,245 registered electors. A total of 23,600 names were added, while 2,367 names were removed. It represented a net increase of 21,233 more than the 1,849,012 names on the previous list published on May 31, 2016.

Under current Director of Elections Glasspole Brown, the names of 71,529 dead electors were removed from the list published on November 30, 2019 and represents the largest number of electors removed up to then - in May 2013, 31,262 were removed; 46,528 in June 2006; and 16,584 in November 2005. Since 2019, on average fewer than 5,000 dead electors have been removed per year.

“The issue of reverification and the frequency of such an exercise are under discussion at the ECJ and it continues to be so, until a decision is taken,” Brown told The Gleaner.

Danielle Archer, executive director of National Integrity Action (NIA), believes no more than two election cycles should elapse before the list is purged.

“A clean voters’ list is not just a technical necessity – it’s a moral safeguard. It affirms that every vote belongs to a living, eligible citizen and that democracy is not a numbers game but a sacred trust. To protect that trust, the list must be purged and verified at least every two election cycles,” Archer told The Gleaner.

Elections are constitutionally due every five years in Jamaica.

“An unclean list, by contrast, opens the door to impersonation, inflated or deflated turnout, and disenfranchisement. It distorts constituency sizes, paving the way for gerrymandering and unequal representation… and it skews resource allocation, allowing parties to funnel campaign funds and state benefits based on inflated or outdated data. This isn’t just clerical negligence – it’s a calculated threat to democratic legitimacy,” she argued.

UNCLEAN LIST SUPPORTS INCUMBENT GOVERNMENTS

According to her, an unclean list supports incumbent governments that may resist cleaning, to maintain control over the electoral machinery.

“Calls for biometric upgrades or independent audits are often deflected as too costly. But, in the interest of building public trust and responding positively to voter apathy, efforts to clean the list should not be dismissed.”

University of the West Indies Professor of Political and Social Psychology Christopher Charles said he supported the call for purge, but wants it done even earlier.

“I am supporting the call because it is difficult to have a fair election, or an election perceived to be fair, without a clean voters’ list. The Latin American Public Opinion surveys over many years have indicated that Jamaicans have declining trust in societal institutions,” Charles told The Gleaner.

“Trust is the survival glue that brings people and institutions together for societal stability. The electoral system should be trustworthy because, without it, the country can regress into large scale political violence if there are major, fractious and contentious disagreements over the accuracy of general election outcomes.”

He said he believed however that it should be purged every five years.

“The birth number on people’s birth certificates is also in their passports so the voters’ list can be easily cross referenced with the civil registry and the Passport, Immigration and Citizenship Agency database to remove those that are dead and who live overseas. Laziness stalks the Electoral Office of Jamaica. Amend the Representations of the People Act if you want Jamaicans who live overseas to vote legally,” he argued.

As to the benefits, if any, from an unclean list, he said, “The governing party may benefit because of the popular myth circulated by commentators that low voter turnout favours the government.”

erica.virtue@gleanerjm.com