CARIBARENA Antigua

In view of all the hype and hoopla concerning the judgement rendered in respect of the 2009 Elections Petition, I wish to share some statistics with the nation of Antigua and Barbuda, which hopefully will demonstrate to any rational, logical and unbiased person that the decision of Justice Blenman is unsound and not based on facts.

It is not my intention or desire to cast aspersions on the learned Judge, or to denigrate her in any way. Rather, the intention is to illustrate, that if correct mathematical principles were applied, the petitions filed by the ALP would have (and should have) been rejected.

Certain trends become readily evident when statistics of actual votes cast dating back to 1976 are compiled. Included in this commentary are a number of charts providing details of voter registration and voting trends, for every election held from 1976 to 2009 inclusive.  Summarized findings are as follows:

* A complete re-registration of voters took place in 1976 and again in 2004. As a result of these re-registration exercises, the lists were purged of deceased persons; multiple registrations for individuals who had moved from one constituency to another; persons who had migrated and were not present for the re-registration exercise etc. The graph that follows depicts trends in the number of registered voters. Take note of the decline in the number of registered electors in 2004, once a new list was prepared:



* As a result of working with clean voter registers, the percentage turnout was high during the elections of 1976 and 2004. The average voter turnout was 94.97% in 1976 and 91.16% in 2004.


* When one examines the average voter turn-out in elections, when the lists are not “clean” the figures decline markedly. Details of the average national voter turn-out are as follows:

 

1980 Elections  -  77.09%	1984 Elections    - 61.13%
1989 Elections   - 60.72%	1994 Elections    - 62.32%
1999 Elections   - 63.61%	2009 Elections    - 80.27%

These figures are further illustrated in the following graph:



* What these figures illustrate rather vividly is that the turnout in 2009 was considerably higher than that of any other election, save and except when there was a complete re-registration of voters (in 1976 and 2004). This serves as conclusive evidence that there is no basis for the statement suggesting that persons were disenfranchised, due to the late opening of the polls in certain constituencies.

* My analysis reinforced another fact, which is illustrated in the graph below. The number of registered voters increased during every election cycle, save and except for 2004, when the number of registered voters declined by 17%, as a result of the re-registration exercise. This reinforces the point made earlier as regards the higher percentage voter turn-out during elections immediately following a re-registration of voters. Whereas 39,616 persons voted in 2004, this figure increased to 41,885 in 2009, yet the percentage turn-out declined from 91.16% in 2004 to 80.27% in 2009.




Now, for a closer look at the voting pattern during the 2009 elections: As intimated above, the average voter turn-out in 2009 was 80.27%. The turn-out in the three constituencies, where the election results have been voided, is as follows:

* St. John’s Rural West – 80.48% which is marginally above the national average.
* St. John’s Rural North – 79.03%, which is 1% below the national average, and
* St. George – 79.02%, which is also 1% below the national average.


For the record, the turn-out in these constituencies was not only in line with the national average, but they exceeded the turnout in several other constituencies, including:

* St. John’s Rural South, which had a voter turn-out of 76.36%, which you will note is 3.91% below the national average, and
* St. Mary’s North, which recorded a voter turn-out of 77.84%, which is 2.43% below the national average.

When these figures are examined, it is impossible to comprehend how it could be suggested or construed that persons were disenfranchised, and to the extent that it would have a bearing on the outcome of the election of the candidates involved. In my humble opinion, Justice Blenman erred, and significantly so, when she confined her comparison only to the voter turn-out in 2009 vs. 2004; and once the premise of the judgment is false, the result is bound to be flawed. To use a local saying, one has to compare apples with apples; not apples with oranges, and that is precisely what Justice Blenman did when she used the 2004 turn-out as the basis for arriving at her decision. Not only was the learned lady comparing apples with oranges but she did so in a year when the list was not “clean” - hence a double whammy, as the trends clearly demonstrate that the voter turn-out when the electoral list in not clean is significantly lower.

Had Justice Blenman done the math, she would have gleaned from the above statistics that the percentage voter turnout in 2009 was the highest in Antigua’s history of elections with unclean lists.   Remarkable but factual!   With the benefit of this knowledge, the learned Judge would have been bound to deliver a ruling contrary to the one she did.   

Another factor that was most likely overlooked by the Judge, is that the highest voter turn-out in Antigua was in the constituency of St. Philip North (which is one of the smaller constituencies in terms of the number of registered electors), where the turnout was 85.06%. Even if, for the sake of argument, the Judge were to decide that the turn-out in the three affected constituencies should be at least 85.06% (and this reasoning could not withstand scrutiny) this would have the following effect:

* The number of voters in St. John’s Rural West would increase by 229 to 4,250
* The number of voters in Rural North would increase by 216 votes to 3,043, and
* The number of voters in St. George would increase by 267 to 3,755.


Further, if hypothetically all of the new votes were awarded to the ALP, the UPP would still be declared the winner in St. John’s Rural West and St. George, where the margin of victory was 506 votes and 502 votes respectively. Only in the case of St. John’s Rural North would the result be different, as the margin of victory was 79 votes, compared to the 216 additional voters.

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The point that screams loudest in all this is that, despite whatever permutation is used, the UPP would still be the majority party in Parliament. This is as simple as ABC or 1-2-3. The decision of Justice Blenman, which according to her was based on a comparison of historical data, defies mathematical logic, since fairness demanded that a much broader approach be used rather than just the data from the previous election.  My analysis bears this out.  The UPP is therefore more than justified in its decision to appeal to a higher Court. In the interest of equity, fair-play and natural justice, this flawed judgement should be overturned if all the facts and historical statistics are taken into account.

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