Stop dithering on voting protocols

THE NOVEL coronavirus didn’t just descend on Jamaica. The first case of COVID-19 was confirmed on March 3. Three days later, the Government activated the Disaster Risk Management Act and declared the entire island a disaster area at risk of widespread infection from a communicable disease. Immediately, the community of Bull Bay, east of Kingston, on the way to the parish of St Thomas, was placed under quarantine.

Neither did the general election, to be held on September 3, suddenly creep up upon us. Jamaica’s Constitution dictates that “Parliament, unless sooner dissolved, shall continue for five years from the date of its first sitting after any dissolution and shall then stand dissolved”. After the dissolution, a general election has to be held within three months.

Conceivably, the Jamaica Labour Party administration, if it wanted to stretch its term to the limit, could have stayed in office until March 10, next year – the fifth anniversary of the first sitting of the House after the general election of February 25, 2016. However, it was widely anticipated that Prime Minister Andrew Holness would call the poll this year. He made no secret of it. Indeed, Parliament voted extra money in this year’s Budget for conducting the election.

Further, it is the job of the Electoral Commission of Jamaica and its operating arm, the electoral office, to always be prepared for elections. That includes constantly reviewing protocols and adjusting and adapting them as circumstances require. The health authorities, too, knew that Jamaica would go into an election in the presence of the coronavirus.

LACK OF CONSENSUS

Which is why we are surprised that there isn’t, at this stage, fully developed protocols for conducting the election in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. Particularly, there seems to be a lack of consensus, incoherence even, between the electoral office and the health authorities on whether people under quarantine for, or ill with, COVID-19 will be allowed to vote.

The Constitution disqualifies from registering as electors persons who are:

•“Certified to be insane or otherwise adjudged to be of unsound mind or detained as a criminal lunatic.”

•

Serving prison sentences in excess of six months.

•

Under a sentence of death.

•

Convicted of an election offence, for which disqualification is the penalty.

However, the Representation of the People Act, at Section 5, does bar a registered elector from voting if “on election day, he is an inmate of any mental hospital or undergoing any sentence of imprisonment”.

On the face of it, every other eligible elector should, if he or she wishes, be able to cast his or her ballot. That, it appears, is the position of the director of elections, Glasspole Brown, with regard to the 26,000 people under quarantine for COVID19 and the disease’s more than 200 active patients. “Every qualified elector has the right to exercise their franchise, and we will seek to ensure that we do whatever is in our remit to uphold their constitutional right,” Mr Brown has said.

NO CLARITY AS YET

At a press conference last week, the health minister, Christopher Tufton, indicated that there were outlines of COVID-19 election protocol. Astonishingly, however, he said that they “have not started the discussions” with respect to voting in communities that will be under quarantine on election day. The authorities, however, were looking at how “that can be facilitated”. Neither is there, as yet, clarity on what will happen with respect to individuals in isolation.

The Disaster Risk Management Act gives the prime minister sweeping powers to impose measures to remove or guard against the hazard against which an order has been declared, but there would likely be heated constitutional quarrels over whether these would extend to infringing on an individual’s right to vote. In any event, it is exceedingly unlikely that this would be contemplated.

Clearly, the current situation creates a tension between critical facets of Jamaica’s well-being, namely the preservation of health and citizens’ right to participate in democracy’s most crucial element – the right to vote. Both have to prevail. Given that everyone knew that these tensions were bound to arise, the protocols should already have been designed and by now, been stress-tested for efficacy. We are almost at the eleventh hour. Time to move beyond the dithering.