Elections Office will guide on new constituencies

(CNS): If the PPM-led administration agrees to accept the recommendations of the Electoral Boundary Commission when the final report is submitted later this month, it will be the Cayman Islands Elections Office that will direct voters on their new constituencies. Although the commissioners used the 2010 boundary report as a starting point for the single member constituencies, the increase in registered voters since then and information on qualified but as yet unregistered people from the census created boundaries that are very different from previous polling station areas.

While Caymanians have historically voted for multiple candidates in the larger districts, they had been divided into polling areas which dictated where electors cast their votes. These were based directly on previous recommendations of where the single member constituencies would be if government opted for electoral reform.

But on the new proposed map residents of West Bay that would have voted in the previously recommended polling area of West Bay East may now find themselves voting in West Bay North. Bodden Town electors who once went to the polling station in Pedro would, under the new proposal, vote in Bodden Town West. And in the capital, some voters in the polling areas of Red Bay and George Town South would be voting in the newly proposed constituency of George Town East.

So far there has been no comment from the premier or his front bench about the recommendations.

In the final two boundary meetings held this week, the only members of the Legislative Assembly who attended were Finance Minister Marco Archer, government back-bencher Joey Hew, veteran politician Anthony Eden, and Speaker of the House Julianna O’Connor-Connolly .

Cabinet is expected to receive the commissioners’ report before the end of July, and if the government embraces the recommended new political map, including the controversial nineteenth seat, a motion will be brought to the LA to formally accept it and direct a change to the election laws. Once the legislative change is in place, the Elections Office would then have the task of directing voters on their new constituency, checking that their residency is accurate and issuing new voter cards.

The public meetings during the boundary commission process has revealed that the public is still in some cases ill-informed about the process of democracy and who is allowed to do what, even under the system as it exists now. With so much misunderstanding, government will need to ensure a thorough and informative education and awareness campaign ahead of the change if it wants a smooth ballot when Cayman next goes to the polls in 2017.

With just under two years to go, however, the Elections Office should be able to re-register electors in their new constituencies and explain the simpler system of one vote well before Nomination Day to the broader electorate.

But it’s not just voters who will be facing a reformed election landscape; the politicians will also be venturing into unknown territory. The battleground for the existing members and would-be candidates in the first ever vote in Cayman under the system of SMCs and ‘one man, one vote’ is likely to be fiercely fought.

Candidates will not only be making decisions about whether to run as an independent candidate or which party or group they will run with but also which constituency within their district they are most likely to win.

While existing MLAs and former candidates will have an idea of which areas they polled the most votes in past elections, the new constituencies do not correlate exactly with those polling areas and may leave some representatives and would-be politicians taking a gamble on where they think they can take or retain a seat.

In addition, those MLAs running in parties, groups or coalitions would have the additional problem of negotiating with their political colleagues over who will run where, presenting some difficult battles for MLAs and potential candidates lower down the pecking order.

The current party leaders, Alden McLaughlin and McKeeva Bush, would need to balance their own desire to choose a seat they are confident of winning against the need to ensure all their candidates, including their weakest, get the best possible shot of retaining or taking a seat to win government.

The new system, if adopted, would result in an election battle with only one winner in each constituency and a straight ‘first past the post’ fight, presenting a learning curve for both voters and politicians.