Editorial | Use the vote, or lose it!

A United States Supreme Court ruling that will allow states to strike off voters who haven't voted for six years is a significant test of voting rights, for it has the effect of disenfranchising thousands of voters in America.

The conservative majority found by 5-4 that the state of Ohio was not in violation of the law by striking off electors who failed to vote for six years and who also ignored warning notices.

Although premised on guarding against voter fraud, one dissenting justice remarked that the purge programme really compromises the rights of eligible voters.

Achieving a clean voters' list is a challenge for electoral systems. Here in Jamaica, while we recognise that the list is an important component of the voting system, we have had issues such as dead people turning up on electoral lists. There is now a continuing debate about funding the purging of the list.

Several states in the USA have been using various means to keep their voter rolls clean and current. But Ohio has gone further in the weeding-out process. Notices are sent to voters who have not voted for two years, and if they fail to respond and miss two more federal elections, they will be scrubbed from the list.

From this distance, this purge tactic may seem harsh, but it may also give ideas to countries like ours struggling to find a remedy for voter apathy. The US Supreme Court decision has been criticised by liberals as a giant jurisprudential step backwards and a signal that the Republicans see voting not so much as a right, but as a privilege.

Civil-rights groups argue that the Supreme Court continues to gut the Voting Rights Act to the detriment of minorities, the poor and disabled. History is replete with examples of attempts to keep segments of society from voting, whether through literacy tests, poll taxes or identification cards.

Voter turnout in America is about 40 per cent for midterms and 55 per cent for presidential elections. Meanwhile, the turnout of 47.7 per cent for Jamaica's 17th general election in 2016, was the lowest since universal adult suffrage was declared in 1944.

Electoral reform should, therefore, seek to address voter apathy. The integrity of elections depends on eligible voters being able to cast their votes and have them counted.

So even with bloated lists, when the data show that only 47.7 per cent of eligible voters made the decision to leave home and attend a polling booth to cast their votes, can we be satisfied with our democracy? We see nothing to brag about in this tepid response.

How will Jamaica turn around this seeming lack of interest in the electoral process? What will it take to get more citizens engaged and interested in how our democracy functions? How do we make voting a right that is respected? Should we do like Australia and make voting mandatory?

Voting is an important part of the political process in any democracy and citizen participation is essential for elections to be meaningful. The negative effects of voter apathy and alienation on our democracy are too great to ignore.