In five weeks, in cir­cum­stances dif­fer­ent in so many ways from pre­vi­ous polls, T&T will vote for its next gov­ern­ment.

When Prime Min­is­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced Au­gust 10 as elec­tion day yes­ter­day, ac­tiv­i­ties that were al­ready in mo­tion by the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) and var­i­ous po­lit­i­cal par­ties shift­ed in­to high gear.

But the con­duct of the polls will be dic­tat­ed by COVID-19, the dead­ly pan­dem­ic which has led to elec­tions be­ing post­poned in at least 67 coun­tries.

T&T now joins at least 40 coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries that have de­cid­ed to go ahead with elec­tions, while six coun­tries have al­ready held elec­tions or ref­er­en­dums, in­clud­ing South Ko­rea, which had its high­est vot­er turnout in 18 years at its so­cial­ly dis­tanced polls in mid-April.

The EBC has al­ready de­vel­oped a pol­i­cy doc­u­ment which in­cor­po­rates all of the pub­lic health re­quire­ments for vot­ing. Chief Elec­tion Of­fi­cer Fern Nar­cis-Scope has al­ready in­di­cat­ed that po­lit­i­cal par­ties will have to ad­just their ma­chin­ery and find in­no­v­a­tive ways to reach out to the pub­lic. At the same time, op­tions such as longer hours of vot­ing and mea­sures for re­duc­ing the num­ber of vot­ers in polling lo­ca­tions will have to be con­sid­ered.

This means T&T’s elec­tion tra­di­tion of mass cam­paign gath­er­ings and a flur­ry of events, where can­di­dates get up close and per­son­al with the prospec­tive vot­ers, shak­ing hands and even hug­ging and kiss­ing, are out of the ques­tion. Even mo­tor­cades will have to be done dif­fer­ent­ly to com­ply with pan­dem­ic pro­to­cols.

Some can­di­dates have al­ready been on so­cial­ly-dis­tanced walk­a­bouts and par­ties have been hold­ing vir­tu­al elec­tion meet­ings. How­ev­er, now that the elec­tion bell has been rung, there will be in­creased pub­lic in­ter­est in all things po­lit­i­cal. Con­trol­ling crowds and the be­hav­iour of en­thu­si­as­tic sup­port­ers will un­doubt­ed­ly be much more chal­leng­ing than be­fore.

Elec­tion night vic­to­ry cel­e­bra­tions, crowd­ed events that have be­come a spe­cial fea­ture of T&T pol­i­tics, will al­so have to be tem­pered.

But there is an­oth­er COVID con­se­quence that will weigh heav­i­ly on the up­com­ing polls—the num­ber of el­i­gi­ble vot­ers who will be dis­en­fran­chised if the coun­try’s bor­ders re­main closed.

There is like­ly to be a clam­our from the many na­tion­als out­side the coun­try for ex­emp­tions to re­turn home and cast their votes. Ef­forts by the au­thor­i­ties to care­ful­ly man­age this process, with quar­an­tines and oth­er re­stric­tions aimed at keep­ing COVID-19 at bay, will come un­der in­creased pres­sure and scruti­ny dur­ing this pe­ri­od.

While too late for this elec­tion, widen­ing vot­ing op­tions to in­clude mail-in bal­lots and elec­tron­ic vot­ing must be con­sid­ered for the fu­ture, along with any oth­er sys­tems that con­form with the new nor­mal.

The last time T&T went to the polls, vot­er turnout was a de­cent 67.27 per cent. How the pan­dem­ic af­fects this and oth­er as­pects of the elec­tion re­mains to be seen.