Electoral Reform Secretariat
Church Street
Basseterre
St. Kitts


MANCHESTER CROWD SAYS OVERSEAS NATIONALS SHOULD REGISTER AND VOTE WHEREVER THEY CHOOSE

Birmingham, United Kingdom (October 18, 2006): Last night in Manchester, the crowd of 27 people was reticent at first, with only three of them addressing the Electoral Reform Consultative Committee (ERCC) 45 minutes into the meeting.

It was then that the chairman of the meeting, ERCC member Clement “Bouncin” Williams made a request for fresh voices. “Can we have some fresh voices, please?”

At that moment, it dawned on ERCC member, Elvin Bailey that, “It appears that we’re asking persons to make recommendations about a system that they are not very familiar with.”

He added, “I don’t know how many of you have actually participated in the electoral process in St. Kitts and Nevis. How many of you?”

“One,” Mr. Bailey observed upon seeing a lone hand in the air. It was that of Michael Hendrickson, a prominent lawyer from St. Kitts who in the late 1980s stood for elections in the United Kingdom as a candidate for the Labour Party.

“Let me back up a bit and talk about the process from inception,” Mr. Bailey said. “We have what is called continuous registration in the sense that once you hit the age of 18 and you are eligible to register to vote you can do so by going into the electoral office in St. Kitts or a subsidiary in Nevis and becoming registered. When you present yourself, you give your name, your date of birth, your address, your occupation, and nothing else. You are required on the form to say which electoral district and which polling division you are registering for...and once you are on that list, you are on that list for life. Now, is there any recommendation that you would like to make about that process that would help to tighten it up?”

A man who did not identify himself to the ERCC delegation in the United Kingdom - Elvin Bailey, Clifford Thomas, and Clement “Bouncin” Williams - responded. “Is it imperative that someone has got to come to St. Kitts or Nevis to register? It appears to me as though you’re saying that you don’t trust,” he said, failing to continue his thought. He continued, “If you have an embassy here in London, it can easily be done through that...All the particulars you’re saying that they must come to St. Kitts or Nevis to do could be done here. Someone may not have the money to go all the way there, so that could be done here more easily than saying have someone coming to St. Kitts or Nevis.”

This recommendation - that registration should be done through the High Commission of St. Kitts and Nevis at 10 Kensington Court in London - was forwarded earlier by Mr. Hendrickson shortly before Mr. Williams called for fresh voices.

Mr. Hendrickson suggested that the High Commission of St. Kitts and Nevis could carry out the registration in different districts. “I think once we set up some sort of a process between area and area, get someone to work in every area, it will cost some good money, but this money will be put to good use because the people will know what’s going on. It would work. It’s a lot of work for the High Commission. He [High Commissioner James Williams] will need plenty of staff to do it, but it will work because these people wouldn’t have the money to go to St. Kitts and they wouldn’t have the money to go to Nevis.”

As things stand, overseas Nationals can only register and vote in person in the St. Kitts and Nevis elections.

The gathering came to a consensus that continuous re-registration should take place both at home and abroad, and that St. Kitts and Nevis should accommodate overseas Nationals who want to vote but cannot make it home for whatever reason, such as physical or monetary constraints. Mr. Hendrickson said, “We have a number of elderly people in this country who are still citizens of St. Kitts and Nevis and they cannot travel. For the number of citizens for both St. Kitts and Nevis who cannot actually walk or who haven’t got the money to actually go to register, I recommend that something be done to accommodate these people who cannot get there to cast their votes or proxy votes, or whatever. It’s like sometimes I can’t go down to do my voting with the bank and I send my proxy down. I would like to see this happening to people who want to vote for whomever they want to vote for.”

As Audra Brandy, one of several young adults in attendance, pointed out, this arrangement is already a reality in Britain. She explained the registration and voting process to the Electoral Reform Consultative Committee (ERCC). “First of all, what happens is, I think it’s either six months or a year before, you get a form through your door giving you the right to register, everybody in that household who is 18 and over. So everybody is registered. Then, when it comes nearer to elections, I think it’s either a month or a couple of months before, an elections card is dropped through your door. You take this card; it’s got your name on. If there are five people in that house, there are five cards that come through that door as long as you're eligible to vote...Then you take that electoral register card to the voting station and you hand it in, and they will check on their list your name and address against who they have on their list. If you are not on that list, you cannot vote that day.”

Mr. Bailey asked, “So if you don’t respond to their invitation, you’re off?”

Ms. Brandy replied, “Yes, then basically you’re forgoing your right to vote because it’s your responsibility if you want to vote to register...They give you a free post envelope to post it back, so all you have to do is walk to the post box and post it.” She added, “As long as you’re registered, you can have a proxy vote and a postal vote. So there are different methods of voting that they give you...Say like if you’re infirmed and you cannot leave the house, you can get a proxy vote for somebody to vote on your behalf.”

She continued, “You’ve signed this document to say that basically you have got the right to vote, got the right to reside in this country, and if they find out otherwise it says there ‘We will prosecute you if you give false information’.”

But the system is not infallible. Reading the Metro Newspaper [www.metro.co.uk] on a train from Manchester to Birmingham today, the ERCC delegation to the United Kingdom saw an item highlighting this. In its Wednesday, October 18, 2006 edition, the Metro reported in its Metro Digest section that -in verbatim - “Claims of electoral fraud in Britain are to be investigated by the European human rights watchdog. There is ‘a growing body of evidence that widespread absent vote fraud is taking place in the UK’, according to a resolution signed by 18 national MPs from the Council of Europe’s 46 member countries. The British Electoral Commission warned of possible abuses and urged tighter security after postal and proxy voting was introduced in 2001. Last year, a judge hearing a case of alleged postal voting fiddles in Birmingham said the evidence of electoral fraud ‘would disgrace a banana republic’.”

Postal and proxy voting aside, there were many other recommendations in the meeting that ran just short of three hours long.

The following is a wrap-up reflecting the consensus reached on different issues important to the St. Kitts and Nevis Electoral Reform Exercise. The role of women in the political system: St. Kitts and Nevis should “help them along” to re-address the imbalance because women have an “equal part to play.” Voter Identification: We need an identification that is specific to elections, with a serial number and a link to a computerized registration system. Access to media for political parties and politicians: The media should give them equal time and no extra time should be purchased. Code of Conduct for politicians: St. Kitts and Nevis should establish a special commission to draft a code of conduct. The commission should consist of a wide cross section of civil groups and citizens, including religious organizations. Elections in Nevis: The frequency of its elections should be "left alone.” Term Limits: “Let the people decide.”

About half of the attendees ended up participating last night. It was clear that the other attendees had their reasons for not contributing.

One woman said, “The fact is, we don’t know what resources you have to make these recommendations. That’s the reason why we’re so laid back as to say what to give you as recommendations because we don’t know what you do have, what you don’t have, to actually make recommendations.”

Mr. Williams interjected, “We want the best.”

The woman asked, “You have all the resources then?”

“We don’t know,” said Mr. Williams. “We want to set the target at the best. That is our target. If we have to drop short of that target it’s a different story, but I think a lot of it is really more the will to get it done rather than the cost. So let’s think about what we would really like to see rather than what we might be able to afford.”




Contact: Valencia Grant (869-762-6177)