‘GO OUT AND VOTE’
Elections watchdog urges Jamaicans to take polls seriously as survey reveals voter apathy remains high
WITH THE allocation of $1.7 billion by the Government to facilitate a little more than two million electors to exercise their franchise in the local government elections, which take place today and Monday, Chairman of Citizens Action for Free and Fair Elections ( CAFFE) Grace Baston is urging the electorate to turn out in their numbers, vote, and not to give up on the democratic process.
“When we spend that kind of money to prepare for two million people to vote and only a third of that (number) shows up, that is a massive waste of the country’s resources that we don’t have. I am hoping that Jamaicans take the elections seriously and go out and vote,” the CAFFE chairman told The Gleaner yesterday.
Baston’s urging for voters to participate in the elections, which get under way for election day workers and members of the security forces today and the majority of voters on Monday, comes at a time when the results of the latest RJRGLEANER Communications Group-commissioned Don Anderson poll reveal a continued high level of apathy among voters.
The polls, which were conducted between February 2 and 7, asked: “How interested would you say that you are in Municipal (Local Government) Elections?”
Forty-seven per cent of voters across the country claim that they are interested in local government elections. However, Anderson pointed out that the actual turnout numbers do not suggest this level of interest. In fact, he said, this has not been borne out by the percentage of voters who show up to cast their ballots on the day of the elections.
The polls also showed that local government elections have not fired the imagination of 41 per cent of those eligible to vote. Hence they say that they are not interested in voting in local government elections. Another 12 per cent of those interviewed were ambivalent on the issue not being decisive one way or the other.
The sample size was 1,010 registered voters across 14 parishes with a margin of error of plus or minus three per cent at the 95 per cent confidence level.
In the last local government elections in 2016, about 30 per cent of the electorate voted while in the 2020 general elections only 37 per cent of voters exercised their franchise.
When Anderson tested the pulse of voters in December 2023, he found that 38 per cent of Jamaicans signalled that they intended to vote in this local government elections.
Baston argued that the electorate might not be “thrilled with the options” as they contemplate whether to cast their ballot, but she insists that if Jamaicans are serious about preserving their democracy, they should go out and vote.
The head of the independent election monitoring group divulged that she had been told by many that they did not want to stay home on
election day but that they “don’t see who to vote for”.
“I am really encouraging people to not have us waste these resources but let their voices be heard,” she said.
“Unless we have decided that we are giving up on the democratic process, unless we have decided that voting is not the way we are going to choose our leaders, that’s a different matter. We were the first predominantly black nation in the world to have it, this right for every one of us to vote,” she said.
Commenting on CAFFE’s preparation to monitor elections today and on Monday, Baston said her organisation has received support from nearly 500 volunteers.
Ninety per cent of the volunteers are drawn from the sixth-form cohorts of high schools across the country.
She said the volunteers are trained and prepared to monitor the voting process.
“It’s a good sign that you can convince a sixth-former to use a day when all of them want to work on their SBA’s (School-Based Assessment) or their IA’s (Internal Assessment) or simply to sleep because they are tired. It’s an excellent sign, and it makes CAFFE feel that for the general election, we could have twice the number of volunteers, which would be wonderful, especially considering it’s young people.”
Meanwhile, the Electoral Office of Jamaica said that polling stations and staff are equipped and ready to facilitate members of the security forces and election day workers to cast their votes today. Voting will start at 8 a.m. and end at 4 p.m.
A total of 40,514 special-services electors are eligible to vote today.
Police and military personnel will vote at the voting location closest to where they are assigned to work.