Despite debates about an inflated voters’ list, the deeper issue troubling Jamaica’s democracy is voter apathy. Fewer citizens are casting ballots compared to past decades, reflecting widespread disillusionment with governance and trust in institutions. Observers warn that cleaning up the register alone will not restore confidence unless broader concerns about corruption, accountability, and leadership are addressed.

Not only the list

Jamaica Gleaner/8 Sep 2025

JAMAICA’S VOTERS’ register may indeed be bloated, and in need of an exhaustive reverification overhaul. The Government must find the money to get that done soon.

However, with respect to the recent public discussion on this issue, especially that the size of the list understates citizens’ participation in elections, this newspaper offers an observation and, more importantly, a warning.

First, and happily, the fact that dead people, and people who have emigrated permanently and have no Jamaican addresses, aren’t being aggressively culled from the list, hasn’t affected the integrity of the Jamaican elections. There are, these days, few loopholes for the impersonation of voters or the distortion, via ballot boxes, of the will of the people.

Our concern is that while it remains a significant issue which must be dealt with, the question is used to distract from issues of governance, and as a hatch through which escapes the problem of voter apathy.

To be clear, this is not a charge we level at those who raised this matter in good faith and as a practical organisational/institutional exercise.

But, anyone who focuses only on the ratios – the number of ballots cast against the numbers on the register – to make a case for the mirage of apathy, needs only to compare the actual figures for people who have voted in recent elections, to earlier ones.

BEEN ON AGENDA

The issue of voter apathy, and how the excess numbers of the electors’ register, exaggerates citizens’ disengagement from electoral politics, has been on Jamaica’s agenda for several years. It gained new attention after last week’s general election that returned Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness’ Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) to office for a third consecutive term, albeit with a significantly reduced majority.

There are nearly 2.1 million names on the election register. Just over 820,000 of them, or 39.5 per cent of the electorate, voted. That was slightly better than in the 2020 parliamentary election when the turnout was 37.5 per cent. Five years ago, however, the election was held in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For another perspective of what last week’s election outcome means, only 20 per cent of all registered voters cast ballots for the party that will govern for the next five years.

Many people, including the former director of elections, Orrette Fisher, argue that this data distorts reality.

Mr Fisher believes that upwards of 500,000 too many names are on the voters’ list. So, it should be around 1.5 million, or closer to 54 per cent of the population.

“The list should be updated regularly to remove people who have died or have migrated but, instead, new registrations are added to the existing list,” Mr Fisher told this newspaper.

Indeed, there has not been a comprehensive registration of voters for decades. And the process of excising the names of dead people, using information from the Office of the Registrar General (ORG) – which the law says that agency must provide quarterly to the Electoral Office of Jamaica – has apparently not kept pace with the needs.

This issue has also drawn the attention of the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC).

“The current voters’ list remains substantially inflated with names that should have been removed long ago,” the business group said in a post-election statement. “We therefore call for a comprehensive and timely updating of the voters’ list, to enhance confidence in the electoral process.”

UNIMPEACHABLE

That fundamental principle is unimpeachable. However, the use of bio-data and photographs on voter identification cards, supported by robust biometric verification systems, has caused voter fraud to be minimal in Jamaica over the last four decades.

But the issue isn’t just the ratios. On the basis of the raw numbers, fewer Jamaicans, generally, are voting now than in the past.

Take the violent, ideological-riven 1980 election, when the voter turnout was nearly 87 per cent. Jamaica’s population then hovered around two million. Nearly 861,000 people voted. That was five per cent more voters than last week.

Resolving the ideological debate in the Cold War environment contributed to that turnout. But, in 1989 (the People’s National Party boycotted the 1983 election) when the ideological question was already settled, 845,485 people cast ballots.

Indeed, the number of people who voted on September 3 was lower than in 2011 (876,310) and 2016 (882,389), when the island’s population was smaller than today, notwithstanding the current negative demographic trends. In fact, the number of ballots cast in this election was roughly equivalent to 2007, when 821,325 people voted.

Numerous opinion surveys have highlighted the disenchantment of large swathes of Jamaicans, especially young people, with the political process. Among their biggest peeve is the quality of governance.

Indeed, 86 per cent of Jamaicans believe they live in a corrupt country and have little trust for institutions of the State. Fifty per cent would tolerate a military coup to address corruption in public bureaucracy.

There is, too, the worrying fact that only 58 per cent of Jamaicans, in 2023, gave full-throated backing to democracy, and that 28 per cent felt that democracy, as practised on the island, didn’t work in their favour.

While cleaning the voters’ register is important, the political elite and others who help shape the management of the State, can’t forget these important matters of governance.

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