Editorial | How can those in quarantine vote?

Few acts give expression to the ideals of democracy as the ability of the individual to vote for a government in an election that is free and fair. Yet, this newspaper is not clear that thousands of Jamaicans, who presumably have that right – including Julian Robinson, the general secretary of the People’s National Party (PNP) – will be able to exercise their franchise in the September 3 general election.

Mr Robinson, ironically, is a candidate in the election. He contracted COVID-19. Like several hundred Jamaicans still infected with the novel coronavirus, thousand others awaiting test results, or the passage of the incubation period to determine if they have the disease, he has been in home quarantine. That is a government regulation, enforceable under the prime minister’s power to invoke the Disaster Risk Management Act and the health minister’s authority under the Public Health Act.

CREATIVE SOLUTIONS

Quarantine arrangements make sense. For, COVID-19 is a communicable disease without a proven vaccine, which is spread primarily by the respiratory droplets of infected people. But, as this newspaper observed a fortnight ago, in the face of a national epidemic, ways have to be found to resolve the tension between the sanctity of the right to vote and protecting the health of the population. That, in the circumstances, requires creative solutions, which neither the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ), which runs the island’s elections, nor the health authorities appear to have been able to craft. Or, if they have, it hasn’t been disclosed to the public.

Under Jamaica’s Constitution and its Representation of the People’s Act, a small category of persons are expressly disqualified from registering to vote in elections. They are people who are:

– under sentence of death

– serving prison sentences of six months or more

– certified as insane or detained as criminal lunatics; or

– have been disqualified from voting as punishment for election-related convictions.

However, even if someone is a qualified voter, but on election day is in jail or a mental hospital, that person, by law, isn’t allowed to cast a ballot. All other qualified voters can, on the face of it, exercise their franchise. “... We will seek to ensure that we do whatever is in our remit to uphold their constitutional right,” Glasspole Brown, the director of elections, declared.

How that will happen with respect to people in quarantine or isolation for COVID-19 is, up to now, not clear.

Thus far, the election officials, including Mr Brown, have outlined voting protocols aimed at preventing the spread of the virus by, or to, people who make it to voting precincts. Voters will be required to wear masks, facilities and equipment will be frequently sanitised, and obviously vulnerable people, especially the elderly, will be afforded priority in casting ballots, without disenfranchising other electors.

HOW WILL PERSONS IN QUARANTINE VOTE?

What has not been said is if, and how, persons in quarantine or isolation will be allowed to go out to vote, and if they are, what regime will attend their actions. The health minister, Christopher Tufton, had indicated unease with known COVID-19 patients being allowed out to potentially mingle with the rest of the community, but said that there would be discussions on how their voting rights could be “facilitated”.

There, however, has been no report from either the minister or the ECJ on how those talks have advanced, and where officials place the balance between the preservation of the right to vote, inherent in the Constitution and the electoral laws, and the preservation of public health, a responsibility of the State, also acknowledged by the Constitution.

We appreciate the State’s constitutional powers to do things that infringe on fundamental rights in circumstances where those actions are “reasonably justified in a free and democratic” society. In this case, we believe that both objectives are achievable. It is unfortunate that the authorities have taken so long to bring clarity to the matter. We hope that this doesn’t become an issue for post-election litigation.