Taken from: Governance and Democracy in the Commonwealth
Caribbean: An introduction by Patrick Emmanuel pp 53-57
Matters related to the
registration of voters and the conduct of elections have been surrounded with
much greater conflict in the region than constituency issues. A useful
description of difficulties regularly encountered with such matters throughout
the region is the following commentary, made about the Jamaican case:
“Criticisms and strictures have been directed
generally against breaches provided through loopholes inherent in the system and
abuses perpetuated by corrupt election officials. These have focused more
specifically on charges such as ‘bogus voting’ that is, impersonation
(voting in a fictitious name, in the name of a deceased person, etc.), multiple
voting by an individual, the deliberate omission of qualified persons from the
electoral list, the padding” of the list, and the stuffing of ballot boxes”.
(Gladstone Mills, “Electoral Reform in Jamaica”, Parliamentarian, LXII:2,
April 1981, p. 7).”
Mills’
identification of problems with registration is amplified by comments made by
some chief election officials in their election reports. Consider the following
candid submission by Antigua and Barbuda’s Supervisor of Elections:
“There are still
the names of many dead persons on the list, many persons living overseas and
names of persons who have registered in other constituencies. Duplication of
names has caused the Electoral List to be inflated and not showing a true
picture of the total number of voters. This has caused me some great concern and
I wish to recommend that machinery be set up to hold complete voter registration
of the nation ... Government ought to heed this suggestion in order to correct
the present situation”. (Report on the General Elections ... 1989. Supervisor
of Elections, Antigua and Barbuda, p. 3).”
Reports
in other territories have also cited problems posed by electors such as refusal
to register for religious or socio-economic reasons, or failure to submit
changes of address after enumeration.
In Guyana serious socio-political
concern has been long expressed particularly with overseas registration and
voting, proxy voting and the transfer of ballot boxes to the capital before a
-preliminary count is done at polling stations. However, in a series of
amendments to electoral law, these sources of abuse have been eliminated.
Elsewhere
there have been many instances of protest with regard to voting and vote
counting, including allegations of treated ballot paper and unfair rejection of
ballots. As a result, there have been several cases of election petitions
seeking judicial redress of alleged electoral wrong-doing. But no general
election in toto has been ruled invalid in consequence of judicial
examination.
Quite
apart from the problems and conflicts which arise with corruption, or laxity in
administering unobjectionable existing laws and regulations, there are aspects
of the electoral systems themselves which seem to be inherently defective and in
need of reform. In his above-cited article on Jamaica, Mills observed that there
were demands “to establish an impartial body to remove the conduct of election
from within the influence of an elected Minister”, and that it was in response
to this crisis that the Electoral Advisory Committee and Office of Director of
Elections were created. (Ibid). As has been shown, all countries now have formal
arrangements in place for the independent supervision of elections, though these
arrangements are not uniform throughout. Most of them have Commissions in charge
while a few have independent election officials only (viz. Antigua and Barbuda,
Bahamas, Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines).
It is noteworthy that in Antigua Parliament is
involved in the recruitment of the Supervisor. According to section 67:1 of the
Constitution, “The Governor General shall by notice published in the Gazette
appoint a Supervisor of Elections on resolutions to that effect of both Houses
of Parliament specifying the person nominated for appointment”. Parliamentary
selection in fact means selection by the majority party, i.e. the Government.
The desirability
of this exceptional provision merits some considerable reflection.
In this regard it is
appropriate to recall that the Constitution Commission of Grenada reviewed
arrangements for electoral administration there and commented that:
“Although there was no evidence before
the Commission signifying widespread
dissatisfaction with the manner in which
the Supervisor carried out his functions,
we recommend that the function of the
Constituency Boundaries Commission
be extended to include the conduct and
supervision of the elections ... as is the
case in some other member states of the
Caribbean Community ... The Supervisor
of Elections could become the chief
administrative officer of the Commission
and be subject to the direction and
control only of the Commission in the
exercise of his functions. His appointment
could be made by the Commission or,
alternatively, by the Governor-General
acting after consultation with the Chairman
of the Commission”. (p. 22).
In Grenada, the Supervisor
currently, is “the person holding or acting in such public office as may for
the time being be designated in that behalf by the Governor-General acting in
his own deliberate judgement”. (Sec. 35:1, Constitution). In St.
Vincent, the office whose holder becomes Supervisor is designated by “the
Public Service Commission, or, if the Commission so decides, by such other
person who is not a public officer as may for the time being be so designated,
but before exercising its powers under this subsection the Commission shall
consult with the Prime Minister” (Sec. 34:2, the Constitution).
In St. Vincent then, the Prime Minister may be involved in
the process of appointing a Supervisor of Elections, depending on whether the
PSC decides to recruit one from inside or outside the Service.
There is also room for reflection on the principle of choosing the senior election officials from within the ranks of the civil service, having regard inter alia, to the powers Prime Ministers have over senior appointments therein. Furthermore, the engagement of the Prime Minister in the process in St. Vincent is exceptional, like the engagement of Parliament in the case of Antigua. Although there is also prime ministerial involvement in the appointment of chief election
officials in Barbados, Belize and Trinidad and Tobago,
these cases of course differ from St. Vincent in that their officials are under
the control of Elections and Boundaries Commissions. In St. Vincent however, the
official is the sole authority over the conduct of elections. In Antigua too.
Another concern is the recruitment of staff of Elections Offices from
within the ranks of the public service. Grenada’s Constitution Commission
advised that it “would be unwise for the [proposed] Electoral Commission to
have to depend on the staff of another Department or Ministry of the Government
under the control and direction of a Minister of Government to carry out its
functions”. Thus it should be made a requirement in the Constitution that the
Commission “must be provided with the requisite staff and funds to enable it
to perform its functions properly”. (p. 22).
However,
it must be recognised that in small communities, with limited numbers of
requisite skills, the scope for recruitment of the very many persons needed to
conduct registration and elections, totally outside the ranks of public
employees, will be quite constricted. Governments employ, as teachers and civil
servants, a large proportion of the requisite talent, and selection of electoral
staff from these categories is a practical necessity. What matters at the least,
is that by secondment from the public service to the Electoral Offices, the
supervision of their electoral functions comes under Electoral Commissions
rather than of Ministers.
In
any event, the integrity required for carrying out electoral duties is a
function of individual character, and not of employment in the public service or
elsewhere. Any employee may be corrupt or corruptible. Actual experience and the
safeguards in place to weed out corruption are critical factors.
One further matter that is worthy of consideration is the
scope for co-operation among countries in helping each other to improve the
machinery of electoral administration. Examples exist, for instance in the case
of Grenada in 1983-84 where the electoral system needed substantial overall,
following its suspension after 1979. Commendable assistance was forthcoming from
within the region in revising laws and regulations, instituting a system of
voter identification and conducting a whole new process of enumeration and
registration.
The level of expertise and experience varies from country to country and even from individual to individual. It should presumably be quite feasible to devise a system, within the framework of the Caricom Treaty, to institutionalise mechanisms for moving expertise to points where it is most needed, such as in the demonstrated cases of registration in Antigua, or Guyana. In this regard a Conference of Election Officials, under appropriate auspices, could be a useful starter. Greater attention to the subject of Electoral Administration in University courses can be helpful.