The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

While segments of the United States are deeply concerned about the very appearance of the involvement of foreign governments in any aspect of their recent elections, the tone deaf US Embassy in Nassau decided that now was a good time to jump head-first into ours.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions but the diplomats on Queen Street ought to know better than to try to help us “Rock The Vote” by getting involved in our voter registration process.

A basic principle of diplomacy is that its practitioners do not involve themselves in the internal affairs of their host country and nothing could be more out of line than appearing to place a benevolent hand on the scales of voting.

Imagine for a moment if the Embassy of the Bahamas in Washington, DC had hooked up with a local university there to help “Rock the US vote”.

Not that the US couldn’t use all the help it can get. Only 58% of eligible Americans actually bothered to vote last election, despite so-called Motor Voter laws and other ease of registering efforts. In some states you can register and vote on the same day. Still, more than 95 million Americans didn’t bother to vote.

Equally depressing, despite rolling out the whose-who amongst the hip-hop set and all of the Hollywood glitterati, urging young Americans to register and to vote in the November election, a dismal 18% of them actually did.

Is this another case of “don’t do what I do, do what I say” from our friends? The Republicans take great comfort in this because in sample polling, if all eligible young people had turned up and voted, Hilary Clinton would be President-elect today.

Our voter registration and importantly, voter turnout, has always been very high. As high as 98.5% in 1997 and was a respectable 91.2% in the last general election in 2012. Bahamians were not too enamoured by referenda and turnout slipped below 50% in June.

I pose the following questions to our misguided friends at the US Embassy. Has the Boundaries Commission met and settled yet? Has the PLP had their convention and picked their leader yet? Did the DNA and UDP get their act together yet? Have all the candidates on all sides been ratified yet?

The point is, don’t sleep on the Bahamian voter. We know Perry Christie and company are going to be late (again!) with organizing the election. We are still auditioning the actors but rest assured we will register and we will vote in droves, so don’t loose sleep over the robustness of our democracy.

Perhaps there are things about how we roll that the Embassy can take back to a couple of their states like North Carolina, Texas, Kansas and Arizona, all of whom brazenly passed new laws to make it harder for young people and minorities to register to vote.

In Texas, you can use a handgun license to register to vote, but your university ID card, even from the state owned university system, will not work. Next door in Florida some wizard in the state capital said no early voting could take place on college campuses.

There is no debate here about who is and is not comporting themselves with the Parliamentary Elections Act.

Not to be spared in this, of course, is Dr Rodney Smith, recently robed as President and Chief Executive Officer of the new University of The Bahamas. Sir, what were you thinking in allowing the US Embassy onto your campus for so clearly a political event? Not exactly a good start. At the very least the University owes us an explanation.

Lastly, Parliamentary Commissioner Sherlyn Hall needs to explain how this happened. He is understandably worried about voter apathy, but this is not a part of Dade County, Florida. Our norms must be respected; otherwise we erode the very trust that we are trying to engender in our young people.

Perhaps the US Charge d’affaires needs to have a private word with her new public relations officer. She needs to remind the new diplomat that maybe prudence demands more circumspection while voter recounts are taking place in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania largely because of fears of possible involvement by foreign actors.

More worrying for the Embassy right now must be the fact that come January 20th they will have to hang a picture of Donald Trump in their lobby, a man who is still falsely claiming that millions of illegals voted in the last election.

Put your own house in order before you worry about mine.

THE GRADUATE

Nassau,

November 30, 2016.