Electoral Reform Secretariat
Church Street
Basseterre
St. Kitts


VOTER IDENTIFICATION A “MUST” IN ST. KITTS-NEVIS ELECTORAL REFORM

St. Thomas, USVI (September 18, 2006): Last night at the Holiday Inn Windward Passage Hotel, the Electoral Reform Consultative Committee (ERCC) gained additional insight into how voters in the United States Virgin Islands (USVI) are identified, and heard more recommendations on how best to implement a voter I.D. in St. Kitts and Nevis.

Kenrick Augustus, a Kittitian who has lived for the past 30 years in the USVI, says he has found that the system here works “quite well”. Not only does the USVI have a voter identification card, but he says it has fail-safe measures in place to compensate for human error.

“Just the other day, as a registered Democrat, I went to vote [a Primary Election was on September 9], but I lost my voter’s registration card,” Mr. Augustus said. “However, just by me providing my driver’s license as a picture ID, they went to the book. There was a picture of me matching it. I voted. They know the area I voted in before. So again identification is a must in the reform.”

Nathaniel Freeman, who moved to the USVI from St. Kitts and Nevis 37 years ago, expanded on what Mr. Augustus said. “When they’re taking the picture, they take two”, Mr. Freeman said. “They take one and they give you one. They put it into the voters’ book so when you walk in and you present yours, yours have to match the one that is already there. If it doesn’t match, you’re out.”

“Without voter identification, you’re leaving the system open to fraud and tampering,” Mr. Augustus said earlier.

High Court Judge Francis H. V. Belle made a similar judgment in the case of Lindsay Fitzpatrick Grant v Rupert Herbert et al [The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court in the High Court of Justice, Federation of Saint Christopher and Nevis, St. Christopher Circuit (Civil) Claim No. SKBHCV 2004/0182], which he delivered on July 12, 2006.

The High Court judge dismissed the petition that Mr. Grant lodged to contest 1) the compilation and integrity of the Voters’ list, 2) irregularities in conduct on polling day, and 3) the fairness and impartiality of the Supervisor of Elections, Leroy Benjamin, due to “the preponderance of the evidence” that Mr. Grant, the Petitioner, had not proved that the irregularities, which occurred, affected the election result, or that the election was conducted in breach of fundamental principles and the law.

However, High Court Judge Belle did conclude that, “After listening to the submissions of counsel, reviewing the law and the various factual accounts, I am convinced that the process of registration of voters in St. Kitts and Nevis is seriously flawed. Indeed when a person registers as a voter to have their name placed on a voters’ list there appears to be no request for evidence of identity. Neither does there appear to be any process by which a person who has already registered in one constituency can be prevented from doing so in another, other than by way of the partisan process of objecting. This leaves the list open to fraudulent registration, duplicate registration in various constituencies, and personation on the date of the poll by persons who know that a person by a particular name is unlikely to turn up to vote. The fraudster thus seeks to use the absentee’s identity.”

The High Court judge found that “In this case there is no credible evidence that the 2nd Respondent [the Supervisor of Elections] acted illegally in the compilation of the Register of Voters, therefore the challenge to the list should not be the subject of this Petition.”

What is evident is that reforming the system of voter registration in St. Kitts and Nevis is an urgent issue. In fact, the Report of the Commonwealth Assessment Mission for Electoral Reform in St. Kitts and Nevis (28th August to 8th September 2005) recommends that “the Electoral & Boundaries Commission needs to undertake a systematic national registration and enumeration exercise to ensure: a reliable and accurate register of electors; the introduction of voter identification technology; the identification of non-resident electors; the regular removal of deceased persons from the register, and the requirement that voters (other than those residing overseas at the time of an election) are registered in the constituency of their normal residence.”

Moreover, the case of Grant v Herbert is a seminal one because it helped to bring this urgency to the fore. In his judgment, High Court Judge Belle asserted that “the public’s awareness of the flaws in the electoral system has been raised by this Petition...at the end of the day the Supervisor of Elections, Presiding Officers, Returning Officers, Poll Clerks, and Agents will all be more vigilant in future as a result of this case and some of the arguments put forward by counsel on both sides, along hopefully, with the decision of the court.”

Proposed reforms by the Government of St. Kitts and Nevis laid out in the Electoral Reform White Paper include the introduction of a National Registration System that would lead to the issuance of a “Smart Card” [defined as a digitally encoded card, similar to a credit card, usually containing a range of information about the individual using it] and the introduction of a proper ID system for registration.

Last night in the Caribbean Room at the Holiday Inn Windward Passage Hotel, attendees recommended that full names be placed on a voter identification card, as well as a photograph, the elector’s address, date of birth, signature, and a social security number.

ERCC member Douglas Wattley raised the question of whether the voter identification card should also be used as a national identification card, i.e. one that can be utilized to access government and commercial services, or whether there should be two cards: one specifically for voting, and the other for general purposes.

“The intelligent card or smart card,” Mr. Wattley said, “is likely to be used for several things, to access health care, or whatever. Now who should issue the smart card if it’s going to be used also as a voter ID?...Who should register a voter?...Should they [the Electoral Office] issue a voter I.D., or a smart card, or both?...So the voter who is to be registered goes to the elections office and he becomes registered as a voter because that’s the purpose of that office, and he gets an I.D., which is a voter I.D., or a smart card that has a lot of things that don’t have anything to do with voting; which one?”

Patricia Phillip Wilson said, “A voters’ I.D.”

Mr. Wattley replied, “A voters’ I.D. OK. You see, I’m trying to clarify here then who would issue the smart card.”

I think the Board of Elections. I don’t know,” she said.

“OK. OK.”, said Mr. Wattley. No other attendee commented on who should issue the proposed smart card.

Mr. Freeman pointed out that the voting card in the USVI is used for general purposes. “Our voting card could be used for identification if you go to the bank to change a cheque. You could do business with the card, the same card. It’s only one card.” However, their card is not a “Smart Card”, which is endowed with digitally-embedded information, such as a fingerprint.

To facilitate a free and fair election in Haiti on February 7, 2006, the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS) awarded Digimarc Corporation a contract with an estimated value of $1.5 million [according to a Digimarc Press Release] to supply the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) of Haiti with four million secure voter identification cards. A Digimarc case study of the Haiti Voter ID Card indicates that the card enables citizens to establish their identity to access government and commercial services. The voter I.D. card includes a digital photograph and digital fingerprint information, an address, and a signature. Security features include micro-printing [tiny letters or numbers incorporated into the design], ultraviolet ink, and Guilloche security design [defined as ornamental patterns formed by the interlacing of curved bands to repeat a circular design].

The delegation to the USVI is scheduled to be back in St. Kitts and Nevis tonight. Public consultations resume on Wednesday, September 20, with a Town Hall Meeting for Saddler’s to include Harris’s at the Saddler’s primary school between 7:30pm and 9:30pm.



Contact: Valencia Grant (869-762-6177)