Tuesday’s parliamentary debate on electoral reform and specifically a proposal by Melissa Gumbs of Party for Progress (PFP) to remove dark curtains from voting booths proved interesting. The idea is to help prevent citizens from secretly taking photos of their filled-in ballots with mobile electronic devices and using these later as invoices to sell their vote.
Her faction colleague Raeyhon Peterson fittingly asked what about local politicians who are doing the buying, while both he and National Alliance (NA) Member of Parliament (MP) George Pantophlet agreed that character and morals cannot be legislated. United People’s (UP) party leader Rolando Brison queried how much election fraud there really is in St. Maarten nowadays.
It’s indeed sad that this discussion was even necessary, but there have been examples in the not-so-distant past including police officers on trial. What’s more, a former MP has been convicted for conspiring with the then prison director to buy votes of inmates at the detention facility in Pointe Blanche and independent parliamentarian Christophe Emmanuel is on record as saying they tried to buy his seat.
Independent parliamentarian Grisha Heyliger-Marten and United Democrats (UD) MP Sarah Wescott-Williams were among those who mentioned the misuse of so-called dummy ballots that became known as “Bulgarian Train” because it was first discovered as a widespread practice there. Voters are given one before they go to the polls and once in the booth exchange it with the still-unfilled official ballot that they just received from election bureau members, depositing the fake one in the voting bin.
The real one is then sold outside, filled in by the buyer and given to the next voter who deposits it and brings out the unfilled ballot they receive inside to get paid as well. This explanation prompted Emmanuel to ask who is giving out these dummy ballots in the first place.
The solution for that problem would be a barcode on each ballot, according to Heyliger-Marten. However, concerns regarding voter privacy were expressed by, among others, Brison, who said there ought to be a balance.
Electronic voting came up, but especially Pantophlet warned against potential hacking to influence the result. For now, removing the curtains as Curaçao and the Netherlands – including on St. Eustatius and Saba – already did seems the most feasible change that appears to have majority backing in the legislature as well as the stated support of Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs.
Whether it can be done in time for the next election scheduled in January 2024 remains to be seen. Wescot-Williams also sought clarity on government’s possible plans to hold the election earlier and avoid having a campaign period during the holidays as was the case four years ago.
Although the latter is certainly not desirable, Parliament must be dissolved for any snap election, which usually involves coalition crises. It appears to be a can of worms probably best left unopened.
