It is high time for legislators to act on experts’ longstanding recommendations to reform the election process in the Virgin Islands.
In a report on the 2015 election, which was released to the public this year, the elections supervisor once again gave sound advice, much of which was seconded by a team of foreign observers.
The recommendations, most of which require legislative action, included the following:
• implementing rules to regulate campaign financing;
• drafting a code of conduct for candidates and parties;
• consolidating the Elections Act;
• switching to fixed-date elections instead of allowing the sitting government to set the date for polling day;
• establishing a system of voter registration cards;
• launching electronic vote-counting; and
• implementing a requirement for political parties to register.
These measures would help ensure transparency and accountability in the election process, ultimately making this democracy stronger. Indeed, most are basic standards that should have been adopted long ago, particularly given that experts have been giving such advice regularly for more than a decade.
Thus, it is disheartening that lawmakers have not taken the requisite action by now. Worse, past promises to tackle such issues seem to have fallen by the wayside. In the 2010 Speech from the Throne, for example, the government of the day promised to amend the Elections Act to implement the recommendations the elections supervisor made following the 2007 election. A similar promise was echoed in 2011, but it was dropped in subsequent Throne speeches.
This year’s speech, which was delivered in September, promises only to amend certain provisions governing the details of voter registration cards. While this step is doubtlessly needed, it is not nearly enough. The government should be promising comprehensive reforms that include all of the measures recommended above.
When it comes to election standards, the territory is behind much of the developed world. It needs to catch up soon.
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