Buddan
Robert Buddan, Contributor
JAMAICA HAD its last elections in October and the United States held mid-term elections in November, following presidential elections in 2000. This makes a good occasion to compare how the two democracies work.
EXECUTIVE ELECTIONS
In Jamaica, the Prime Minister was elected more fairly than was the U.S. President in 2000. American law violated one of the cardinal rules for free and fair elections. An election administration must be independent for it to be impartial. The chief electoral officer in the critical state of Florida, Katherine Harris, was an active Republican who publicly campaigned for George (and Jeb) Bush. She became a crucial decision-maker in determining what recounts were to be made and what ballots were to be accepted. Harris has gone on to win a seat for the Republicans in Florida in the 2002 mid-term elections. Our EOJ showed more independence in October.
Furthermore, Jamaica's election courts are independent. But in the U.S., the Supreme Court members are politically appointed and in 2000 they voted by party- line in favour of President Bush when the electoral dispute was taken to that body. This cast doubt on the role of the Supreme Court as an independent branch of Government or as an impartial election court.
FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS
The mid-term elections once again raised charges in America about how clean elections are. Another cardinal rule of elections is that all citizens must have equal voting rights. However, each U.S. state is responsible for its own election administration so there is no uniform election code that guarantees the same voting rights and the same voting method for all citizens. Almost 90 per cent of Americans now want a uniform system. For example, in New York, voting identification cards are not required. Complaints are therefore made about voter's lists and the need to update them regularly to remove deceased persons and persons who move. Internal population movements between states are heavy and this demands that voter's lists be cleansed regularly. People can drive between states to vote twice. Vote-buying is another problem. Party machines even buy votes with drugs.
In the U.S., voting is done by secret ballot but it is not always private. Voters who are registered as Democrats or Republicans (so that they can vote in party primaries), have their party affiliations listed beside their names on the voter's list. When a registered party voter turns up to vote the election clerk knows which party he belongs to. Some complain that election clerks cannot be trusted to record votes properly. Furthermore, the vote is not universal. In New York, persons with a record of felony do not have the right to vote. This disenfranchises half-a-million persons, mostly African Americans and poor people. Such circumstances do not apply in Jamaica.
GERRYMANDERING
Redistricting (drawing the boundaries of electoral districts), remains a major problem in the U.S. because of gerrymandering. Gerrymandering occurs when district boundaries are drawn so as to include enough supporters of one party and exclude enough of another to make a seat safe for a candidate. The very word "gerrymander" has its origins in of the U.S. A former Senator Gerry so opportunistically designed his constituency that it happened to resemble a salamander - thus the name in his memory - gerrymander. Gerrymandering is possible because constituency districts are redrawn every 10 years when a national census is taken and redistricting falls to the party men in Congress. In Jamaica, gerrymandering used to be a problem but the responsibility for drawing new electoral districts now falls to the independent EOJ.
Redistricting is used to disadvantage African American voters. Districts are often drawn so that African Americans are grouped together with a majority of white voters. They are then unable to make their votes count for their candidates since white votes more than cancel out the voting power of African Americans. This explains why the U.S. south is strongly Republican even though many states are heavily populated by African American voters who are 90 per cent Democrat.
INCUMBENCY
Gerrymandering leads to a major problem for American democracy. This is the problem of incumbency. Most incumbents win back their seats. In fact, in recent years over 90 per cent of incumbents regained their seats. In the mid-term elections of 1994, 1998, 2000 and 2002, the rate of return for incumbents was 94 per cent, 99 per cent, 98 per cent and 98 per cent. Prestigious newspapers like the Wall Street Journal complain bitterly about this. In 1997, that paper estimated that only 30 to 40 of the 435 House seats were competitive. In 2002, only 40 House seats or less than ten per cent were won by competitive margins. Seats are usually only competitive when they are open seats, that is, when an incumbent has died or retired and the new contestants do not have an incumbent among them. Term limits do not apply to House and Senate seats so incumbency can mean life-long tenure. In Jamaica, this high rate of incumbency and incumbent victories do not exist.
Predicting elections in the U.S. is therefore easier than doing so in Jamaica. In 1997, the Centre for Voting and Democracy (not even a polling organisation), was able to predict the outcome of 340 of 341 incumbents' races one year in advance. In 2000, it correctly predicted 237 seats won by landslides. Some margins of victory are so large that in Jamaica we would call those garrison constituencies. In 1998, when 99 per cent per cent of the incumbents won, they averaged 70 per cent of the votes cast in their races. This is a larger margin than was won in 2002 in many of the constituencies regarded as garrisons in Jamaica.
Speaking of the United States, one writer remarked that, "In recent years a House incumbent has been more likely to die in office than to be beaten." A startling comparison was made by another: "The rate of re-election of incumbents to Congress is higher than was the rate of return of members of the old Supreme Soviet (Central Legislature) of the former Soviet Union."
INCUMBENCY AND WEALTH
Incumbency makes first-time candidates spend huge sums of money on elections since they expect to be in Congress long enough to earn back what they spend; and incumbency makes it easier to obtain huge financial backing since the candidate is sure to get to Congress where he can do favours for business contributors. Incumbency also allows candidates to promise what they can't deliver since it is virtually impossible to vote them out when they go back on their word. This defeats the ability of voters to punish candidates for not performing. Redistricting and loose campaign finance rules are the two main advantages of incumbency. American legislators have refused to impose proper campaign finance reforms for this reason. In the 1998 and 2000 mid-term elections, two-thirds of the election winners (mostly incumbents), spent at least 10 times the amount that their rivals spent. This benefited the wealthier Republicans who in 2002 outspent the Democrats by 3 to 1. Big spending has become more important as campaigns have become more expensive. The Congress is mainly a body of multi-millionaires. Jamaica's Parliament is a body of the middle class. The American Congress is a body of the power elite. Some 40 to 50 per cent of its members are millionaires.
ONE PARTY POLITICS
Incumbency returns make most elections of Senators and House members uncompetitive.
Incumbency makes many districts and states de facto one-party arenas. In Florida in 2000, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans bothered to field candidates against each other in almost half of the legislative races; and in Massachusetts, this was the case in three-quarters of the legislative elections. Massachusetts is a one-party state for the Democrats and this explains why Ted Kennedy has been Senator for an unbroken period of 35 years.
In 1998, 95 incumbents won in virtually uncontested elections and 64 did so in 2000. In 2000, 40 per cent of all state legislative races were not contested by a major party. This only happened in Jamaica in 1944 when the PNP did not field candidates in many constituencies and the JLP did not do so in some.
What makes the American system competitive overall is the close consistent balance between the two parties in the Senate and the House. Swings in a small number of seats can change the balance of power. Elections really boil down to which party will win in those few seats. This is similar to the situation in Trinidad and Tobago. In Jamaica, large seat swings are possible because for all the ill-considered talk about tribalism and garrison politics, there are much less safe seats here. If 20 per cent of seats in Jamaica are safe, over 80 per cent of Congressional seats are safe.
Because most seats are uncompetitive, most Americans don't bother to vote. In 2002, 39 per cent voted, at most. This is the lowest turn-out to elect a legislature among the established democracies, as well as among Caribbean democracies, including Jamaica. Probably we should send CAFFE to observe the next U.S. elections.
Robert Buddan is a lecturer in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona. E-mail: rbuddan@uwimona. edu.jm.
