Parties, EOJ say ageing voters’ list still credible

Almost three decades have passed since Jamaica conducted its last national enumeration exercise, and 20 years since addresses were reverified. Officials are now raising concerns that a new enumeration is needed to provide the country with its most accurate voters list in 30 years.

According to officials, a new list would not only remove thousands of names – including those enumerated from as far back as 1996-1997 who have permanently migrated – but also deliver a more accurate voting percentage for local government and parliamentary elections, which have experienced declining turnout in recent years. The September 2020 polls saw the lowest general election voter turnout in Jamaica’s history.

The Sunday Gleaner has learned that political and electoral commission officials have discussed the matter but have yet to decide whether the time has come for a new enumeration exercise. However, the cost of such an initiative would be significant, with current Director of Elections Glasspole Brown estimating it at nearly $5 billion. When combined with general election expenses, the total cost could reach multiples of billions.

A purge should ideally be done every decade.

Nonetheless, Brown stressed: “The current voters’ list contains the names of only those who are supposed to be there. The dead have been removed.

“But what we are proposing is a re-enumeration exercise. What it does, is you go in the field and re-register persons for the list. So the Electoral Office Jamaica (EOJ) would want to suspend the current continuous registration for a year. It can be less because if you have a lot of persons to do the fieldwork. You can enumerate everybody who is interested in being a part of the list, so you can create a new one. You would appreciate that a number of persons on the list have migrated,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.

Concerns about the accuracy of the voters’ list were reignited following last month’s dismal turnout in the by-election for St Ann North East. Uncontested by the main opposition People’s National Party (PNP), the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) retained the seat, but only 11 per cent of the 43,000-plus electors on the list participated. This was a disappointment for the EOJ and has fuelled further discussions about purging the current voters’ list.

“The current voters’ list is updated twice per year – June and November. We operate a continuous registration system, whereby a potential elector can apply at any time to be registered. After the elector’s residence is verified and the application is processed, he or she is added … . Through continuous registration, the list is regularly updated with the addition of eligible electors and the removal of the names of electors who are no longer eligible to vote,” Brown explained.

Brown reiterated that a new enumeration exercise would be costly but necessary.

“In 2023, an enumeration exercise was projected to cost approximately $4.5 billion and could be completed in less than a year,” he said, noting that a year later, the price tag would also rise.

Former Director of Elections Danville Walker received a brand-new voters’ list when he took over in 1997 for the general election that December. He also managed the elections in 2002 and 2007.

By the time Orrette Fisher succeeded him, another enumeration was due, but none was conducted. Fisher oversaw the 2011 and 2016 elections, while Brown conducted the 2020 election using the ageing list. He is also set to manage the upcoming election, which is due by September 3, 2025.

However, there is no timeline for the next re-enumeration exercise.

While the EOJ collaborates with a number of data collection agencies, it relies solely on the data collected by its officials for registration and inclusion on the voters’ list.

“The EOJ also receives assistance from the Registrar General’s Department (RGD), which is required on a quarterly basis to provide the EOJ with a list of registered deaths. ... The EOJ then cross-matches that list with our database to identify registered electors who have died. However, we acknowledge the challenge facing the RGD, with the number of unregistered deaths … ,” Brown told The Sunday Gleaner.

Unregistered and unverified deaths, long-term prison sentences, permanent migration overseas, and intra-island movement are among the factors impacting the current voter’s list.

JLP General Secretary Dr Horace Chang said while there are discussions about the current list, the island’s two main political parties remain confident in the integrity of the electoral results. However, he acknowledged that the long absence of a new enumeration could lead to misrepresented voter turnout percentages.

“It actually does not give a fair representation of voting percentage in general and I would say this that is why we started continuous registration. We have that, but you don’t have continuous upgrading, in a sense,” Chang told The Sunday Gleaner.

“I think there was a discussion that it (re-enumeration) should be done every 10 years, but I don’t think it was adopted as policy. But if Jamaica had a proper national identity system, and we could be sure of the people and their identity and where they were, it would give a more national representation,” he added.

He also pointed out peculiarities among individuals holding national identification cards, stating, “What you find is that they will keep their vote in the contest and when the time for an election comes, they will come back to you during the time and show that they are on the voters’ list. Because you tend to check to see if they are members of the constituency, people tie themselves to the constituency, and sometimes many migrate ... to other areas. If it’s far away, they don’t come back,” said Chang.

Chang highlighted issues impacting voter numbers in constituencies, specifically mentioning St James, where he serves as a member of parliament. He observed high internal migration to areas like Negril and Ocho Rios, leading to bloated constituency lists filled with names of those who no longer reside there.

He added that many Jamaicans have no intention of engaging in the electoral process, but opt for an electoral registration card for national identification, given that it is free.

“A driver’s licence costs you, a passport costs you, but the national ID is free. Not everyone will have either of those, but mostly everyone will have a national ID. And if you have a national ID, you are going to be on the voters’ list,” he noted.

Reiterating support for the enumeration and continuous registration process, he said “The current ID system prevents people from actively impersonating anybody unless there is corruption by an entire set of persons. We don’t have that, and that is a fundamental plank of our democratic system.

“So once that’s in place – that one man equals one vote – then we are on our way, and have been doing so for years. And that seems to be holding up pretty well. But nothing is wrong in ensuring that your voters’ list is tidy. ... That does give some comfort that when someone presents an ID, the person who presents the ID is the person whose data is captured.”

“[The current system] has credibility, but it does need to shed some weight,” said the JLP general secretary.

PNP General Secretary Dr Dayton Campbell agrees.

“I am of the firm belief that there needs to be a renewal process ... because I do believe there is a misrepresentation in the percentage of votes that are reported based on the number of persons that are on the list,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.

Campbell emphasised that continuous registration does allow for eligible voters to be added and for those who have moved to transfer their votes, but he believes there is an urgent need for comprehensive re-verification of the list.

“If we were to remove those persons that have migrated intra-island and place them in the correct constituencies, and outside of the country, and those persons that are dead, then we would realise that the persons eligible to vote in a constituency is a much smaller number than is currently represented. Therefore, when you do have the elections you realise that the percentage that turns up is actually higher than what is currently being reported … ,” he explained.

“ ... We haven’t questioned the election results and we have no reason to do so. But we know that the percentages are a misrepresentation because the list does have persons who are not available to vote. But in terms of the outcome of the election, we are not questioning that. No,” Campbell stated.

erica.virtue@gleanerjm.com