Editorial | Dispatch CARICOM monitors to US elections

Donald Tapia, Donald Trump’s ambassador in Kingston, says the United States has no favourites among the parties in Jamaica’s September 3 general election. America, he says, will happily work with whatever administration that emerges from the contest.

“It is not up to the United States government to determine the government of the people of Jamaica,” Mr Tapia said at a press conference last week. “That is for the Jamaican people. What we are always concerned about is how honest the ballot is.”

This is an affirmation of democracy, for which the United States used to be universally respected for its firm adherence at home, even when it sometimes encroached on those principles abroad in dealing with ideological adversaries or when it perceived American interests to be at risk. No one, not least this newspaper, could ever have conceived a US election to be anything but free and fair, or that any American leader would act to disenfranchise voters, or undermine the integrity of the poll. At least, not until now.

In that regard, we are happy for Mr Tapia’s presence in Jamaica at this time, hoping that he will closely monitor the island’s election and transmit the lessons learnt therefrom to Mr Trump. He will see no calculated attempt by the island’s top political leaders to make the voting system dysfunctional. The election outcome will reflect the will of the people. There will be verifiable processes to deal with legitimate disputes.

We make these observations in the face of the aggressive efforts by Mr Trump and the Republican Party to limit voters’ ability to exercise their franchise in the November presidential and congressional elections.

Americans will vote against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic, which has been particularly devastating in the United States, where near over five and a half million people have contracted the disease and more than 170,000 have so far died. Further, the country is in a second wave of the disease, with the number of cases rising sharply. The problem for state authorities, therefore, is how to conduct the election without exacerbating the spread of this communicable disease.

ABSENTEE BALLOTS

Most states have opted for the expansion, or introduction, of absentee ballots, mostly delivered through the post. Indeed, a handful of states will allow all voters, if they wish, to mail-in their ballots. If Mr Tapia, or other diplomats at the US Embassy choose not to go home to vote, they can, like many Americans abroad, cast absentee ballots.

An analysis by The New York Times newspaper shows that 76 per cent of US voters will this year have the option of some form of mail-in voting. If recent trends hold, experts predict, there will be more than 80 million absentee ballots, more than double the amount of 2016. These votes are expected to overwhelmingly favour the Democrats and their presidential nominee, Joe Biden, whose vice-presidential running mate, Kamala Harris, has a Jamaican father.

Mailed ballots in this election highlights two critical issues. First, Mr Trump, who significantly lags behind Mr Biden in opinion polls, has consistently claimed, without evidence, that mail-in ballots is the basis of fraud in US elections. He has, for months, talked down the process, attempting to sow doubts about its efficacy. Further, in Republican-led states, officials have attempted to put in measures to crimp the growth of absentee ballots.

The second, and perhaps more important factor, is the role of the United States Postal Service in facilitating mailed ballots. There is an obvious, and ongoing, effort to undermine the post office’s capacity to deliver the service. That, quite brazenly, has been admitted by Mr Trump.

DEGRADING OF SERVICE

In June, he installed one of his buddies and big campaign donors, Louis De Joy, as the postmaster general. To widespread consternation, Mr De Joy is aggressively implementing policies that will make it difficult for the postal service to handle the expected massive influx of mailed ballots, thereby undermining the prospect of millions reaching election officials in time for counting. He has frozen hirings, cut overtime work, even for clearing priority mail, and, inexplicably, caused sorting machines to be shut down at some centres. Unions insist that there has been a general degrading of the service.

At the same time, Mr Trump administration negotiators have failed to move forward with Democratic congressional leaders on US$25 billion in support for the postal service and US$3.6 billion in federal electoral support for states. Mr Trump made it clear that this is a deliberate electoral tactic.

“If we don’t make a deal, that means they don’t get the money,” Mr Trump said on Fox Business. “That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting. They just can’t have it.”

No Jamaican leader would countenance, or would expect to get away with such banana republic-style behaviour. Not only would it be beneath their dignity, it would be too vulgar an assault on democracy and the citizens’ right to fair elections, which America used to wear as a badge of honour. Perhaps Jamaica and its Caribbean Community (CARICOM) partners should dispatch election monitors to the US.