#BTEditorial – Being sensitive to voter issues

With just eight days to go before Barbadians head to the polls to elect a new administration to run this country’s affairs, one cannot help but take notice of some words that have taken root in our campaign lexicon.

We are now hearing terms such as “voter suppression”, “disenfranchisement”, “electoral law” and “state of emergency”. Yes, 2022 is an unprecedented year. In fact, the same was said about 2020 and 2021 as we tried to grapple with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on every sphere of our lives.

The pandemic’s rapid spread also coincided with the 2020 American presidential election, and it could be argued that the way the incumbent president handled or mishandled the COVID-19 disease in the United States, represented an important element in the decision-making of American electors.

The former president who infamously sought to bar an American cruise ship filled with his citizens who were hobbled by the disease, because he did not want them “counted” and added to the growing number of cases in the United States, stands out for its level of shamefulness.

Donald Trump, who is arguably now facing more legal battles than any single American citizen or institution in history, also turned the COVID-19 disease into a political football, often putting political expedience ahead of health considerations.

We know that retaining the White House was foremost on his mind. But many will suggest that it would be naïve to think that any politician is not thinking about retention of power in most decisions.

The challenges confronting the local electorate do not come close in comparison to the astonishing slow boil erosion of democracy which the world is witnessing in the United States of America.

The decision by our Electoral and Boundaries Commission (EBC) to not put provisions in place to allow COVID-19 infected voters from exercising their franchise on January 19 is still being vigorously questioned and condemned.

Given the atmosphere that has been created in the United States by the actions of one of the two major political parties to undermine the democratic process in such blatant ways, has made observers around the world, super sensitive to electoral issues.

Last week was the one-year anniversary of the attack on the Capitol in Washington, when Trump set his mob of fanatical supporters of legislators as they sought to formalise the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the duly elected President and Vice-President of the “world’s greatest democracy”.

Barbadians are watching what is happening there as they prepare for mid-term elections. The thought of thousands of local voters being denied the opportunity to cast their ballot due to COVID, makes us jittery.

Debate on the issue has not diminished, just as the COVID infection numbers have also not slowed. Average voters who were already fatigued by all the restrictions imposed to mitigate the spread of the viral illness are further rattled by a new and more infectious variant now in circulation in Barbados.

The recent comments of a political scientist are most interesting. He articulated that voter participation in 2022 is expected to be down significantly due to the pandemic.

He went further to note that the opposition Democratic Labour Party was likely to be impacted more negatively than the Barbados Labour Party because its base support was mainly among in the older demographic, and these are the ones likely to be hesitant because of fear of the contracting the disease.

The incumbent party will always have an advantage in preparing for a general election simply because they can call it any time during the specified five-year period. But conspiracies are likely to abound in the face of such comments.

What we continue to support is the call by many citizens for provision to be made to allow those persons in insolation, many of whom will have few or no symptoms, to cast their vote.

As of January 9, some 3, 243 people are in home isolation and 105 are in Government’s isolation facilities. Each day the number in home isolation grows and it is worrying.  These people, along with many who are worried about becoming infected and thus may stay away from the polls, represent too large a percentage of voters.

In this connection, we cannot help but quote the assessment of senior counsel Garth Patterson, who wrote in a January 5, 2022, article in the Press: “Section 37(1) of the Representation of the People Act (ROPA), empowers the President, on the advice of the Prime Minister, at any time between the issue of an election writ and the day appointed for the poll, to issue a proclamation adjourning the elections for up to 30 days after that date if there is in existence a proclamation declaring that a state of emergency exists.

“The obvious intention of this provision is to ensure, as far as practicable, that qualified electors are afforded a reasonable opportunity of voting. Since the existence of a state of emergency was expressly identified in the ROPA as one of the bases on which the elections might be postponed, it is reasonable to assume that Parliament considered that the existence of a state of emergency could be inimical to the electors’ right to vote and could deprive electors of a reasonable opportunity of voting.”