The at­ti­tude of the Prime Min­is­ter to­wards the call for out­side elec­tion ob­servers for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s gen­er­al elec­tion on Au­gust 10 has prompt­ed me to doc­u­ment my ex­pe­ri­ence with the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion dur­ing the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion of 2019.

We of­ten hear about ‘free and fair elec­tions.’ We are al­so hear­ing that there has nev­er been any prob­lems with our elec­tion process since we start­ed hav­ing de­mo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tions in T&T. But then that is the po­lit­i­cal ma­m­aguy be­ing spun by Dr Row­ley. The court ver­dict that found that the EBC erred in ex­tend­ing the vot­ing time by one hour in 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion should have been the cause for the rais­ing of red flags when it comes to the ad­min­is­tra­tion of fu­ture elec­tions.

While the elec­tions pe­ti­tions case was in the na­tion­al space, my ex­pe­ri­ence of in­con­sis­tent and ques­tion­able prac­tices by EBC of­fi­cials was live and di­rect on the ground in a polling sta­tion.

First­ly, what was ob­served in last year’s Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion held on De­cem­ber 2, 2019 was the ‘priv­i­lege’ and pow­er giv­en to re­turn­ing of­fi­cers to se­lect polling agents to work for the day.

The EBC ad­ver­tis­es to the gen­er­al pub­lic for elec­tion day work­ers. Train­ing ses­sions are al­so ad­ver­tised for those who sat­is­fied the cri­te­ria for work on polling day. Why then, af­ter fol­low­ing and ful­fill­ing all the con­di­tions—in­clud­ing at­ten­dance at af­ter­noons of train­ing, an ap­pli­cant’s fate in be­ing se­lect­ed as a pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer, deputy pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer or poll clerk is de­ter­mined by the whims of the EBC’s re­turn­ing of­fi­cer for the elec­toral dis­trict or con­stituen­cy.

Some­how it is no longer based on the per­for­mance of the ap­pli­cant at the fi­nal ex­am­i­na­tion but ‘who the re­turn­ing of­fi­cer wish­es to se­lect.’

On No­vem­ber 25, 2019, at the start of spe­cial vot­ing, our team sent a polling agent to Arou­ca to wit­ness the vote tak­ing place—as was cus­tom­ary. Much to our shock, with­in min­utes of the agent’s ar­rival, she was told that no one would be al­lowed to wit­ness the spe­cial vot­ing.

The Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ples’ Act pro­vides for a can­di­date to have ei­ther him­self or an agent present at the tak­ing of a poll. What new rule was this? To­tal­ly tak­en aback, we called the par­ty’s lawyers who im­me­di­ate­ly sent le­gal per­son­nel to chal­lenge this ar­bi­trary dic­tate. Af­ter terse dis­cus­sions, the polling agent was al­lowed in. Most un­gra­cious­ly, she was giv­en a chair alone to use. No desk.

The next day, elec­tion day, De­cem­ber 2, I found my­self hav­ing to func­tion as a polling agent for the Bon Air/Arou­ca/Cane Farm can­di­date. I en­tered the polling sta­tion at the Bon Air Sec­ondary School at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 3.30 pm. This was to en­sure I beat the cut-off time to change polling agents which was 4 pm. What struck me at first was how ca­su­al and un­of­fi­cial the whole at­mos­phere was. As vot­ers filed in, they con­versed mat­ter-of-fact­ly with the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer, then the polling agent of the op­po­site par­ty of which I was rep­re­sent­ing; even the po­lice of­fi­cer sta­tioned in­side the room chat­ted and laughed with the vot­ers.

The on­ly neu­tral gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial there ap­peared to be a poll clerk who of­fi­cious­ly con­duct­ed vot­ers through the dif­fer­ent steps.

The an­i­mat­ed, live­ly at­mos­phere changed dras­ti­cal­ly, how­ev­er, at around 5. 10 pm. It was around that time that the agent from the oth­er side yawned and said she want­ed to go home ‘and rest for lat­er.’

In con­tra­ven­tion of the rules of the polling sta­tion, she be­gan con­vers­ing with a per­son out­side via the lou­vres. This was in full view and hear­ing of the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer. The per­son then came in­side and was about to re­place the polling agent. I raised an ob­jec­tion cit­ing the time and the rules which barred any such ex­changes af­ter 4 pm.

The agent on the oth­er side re­tort­ed ‘Geez, al­lyuh does take this ting se­ri­ous, boy.” Com­mend­ably, the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer up­held my ob­jec­tion to the pres­ence of the re­place­ment. They all fell silent. They glared at me. The heat and ven­om then be­came pal­pa­ble. Un­fazed, I held on to the count af­ter polls closed at 6 pm.

A tal­ly sheet was shoved to me by the lead of­fi­cer who said to sign it. I ob­ject­ed. No count had been done. The bal­lot box had not even been opened.

The oth­er agent and deputy pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer who, I as­sumed act­ed as a wit­ness to the pro­ceed­ings, went on and signed the form.

The un­furled bal­lots were then quick­ly flashed be­fore us and the count tak­en. Any ob­jec­tion was met with a gruff, sar­cas­tic re­sponse as though no one should con­tra­dict any in­ac­cu­ra­cy that was ob­served on a bal­lot pa­per or with the process used in count­ing.

I strong­ly sup­port the call for elec­tion ob­servers for the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion. Re­train­ing and sen­si­ti­sa­tion of the roles of EBC work­ers needs to be ad­dressed by Par­lia­ment, so then the politi­cians can say we have ‘free and fair’ elec­tions.

Jerome Chai­tan

Arou­ca

via email