Daily Independent (Lagos)
Kunle Ajayi
24 November 2008
analysis
Secret ballot can be regarded as a direct opposite of open ballot system. It has a major character which is that it is a voting method in which voters' choices are confidential with the key aim of ensuring that voters record a sincere choice by forestalling attempts to influence them either by way of bribery or intimidation. It involves voters casting their votes without other people knowing their preferences.
Secret balloting is popular because of the following basic assumptions and mythologies:
It gives political privacy since voters' preferences are unknown to other voters, contestants, party supporters and electoral officials. It, therefore, provides for political anonymity.
It minimises electoral fraud, as it forestalls attempts to influence voters by intimidation or bribery. Polling booths hide voters from contestants and supporters seeking favours.
It is also believed that it prevents election rigging and manipulations.
Secrecy enhances higher voter turn-out at elections.
It is for these assumptions and merits of secret ballot system that it is regarded as a significant improvement upon open ballot system.
How Secret Is Secret Ballot System?
Beyond the lofty assumptions of secret ballot system, however, are some stark realities. Contemporary evidence has made one to query the credibility of secret ballot system and, therefore, asks the question: How Secret Is The Secret Ballot System?
Abundant evidence shows that secret ballot system suffers the following disadvantages:
*Secret ballot does not prevent voter intimidation and coercion. Voters, particularly in the emerging democracies, such as Nigeria, are subjected to intimidation and suppression by thugs hired by politicians, while they may threaten violence. In advanced democracies, such as the USA, there may be implantation of bombs at polling booths.
*Electoral fraud such as ballot box stuffing, stealing of ballot boxes, multiple voting (even by using non-human objects such as kernel for thumb-printing), manipulation or destruction of voting machines.
*Physical tampering through ballot stuffing: This is called 'ghost voting.'
*Booth capturing. This is a situation whereby thugs of a political party or contestant capture or seize a polling booth and the ballot papers, and, thereafter, stamp or thumb-print the votes in favour of their candidate or party. This is a common problem in India. The armed forces on polling duty may also assist in booths capturing as often the case in some Nigerian elections.
*Theft or destruction of ballot boxes.
*Destruction of election materials so as to annul results of a particular polling booth or the whole constituency.
*Physical tampering with voting machines by altering or replacing the hardware of the voting machine, and thereby manipulating recorded votes to favor a particular candidate or party.
*Inflation or deflation of voters lists. Inflation involves registering false voters as the deceased or even fictitious persons. For instance, the voters register for the governorship elections in some states (for example, Ondo and Edo) contained fictitious names such as 'Bill Clinton', 'Mohammed Ali', 'Mike Tyson,' etc.
Electoral Social Engineering. This relates to people who are usually supporters of one candidate or party pretending to help the elderly, illiterates and the blind with their vote. Eventually, preferences made by these categories of voters are often those of their helpers.
*Voter impersonation
*Voting selling, that is, commercialisation of votes by the electorate involving selling their votes or even voter's registration cards to the highest bidder among the candidates. This is often a feature of politics in poor democracies like Nigeria.
Multiple voting or floating This is a situation whereby voters move from one polling station to another to vote. Such voters are called 'floaters'
Voter importImporting non-citizens from contiguous/neighbouring countries to vote in a country which is not theirs. This happened during the 1992 presidential primaries during the Babangida regime's transition programme. Many Chadians and Nigeriens were 'imported' by some candidates who contested the primaries under the queuing system during the Babangida regime's transition programme.
Announcement of false results by electoral officials.The secret ballot model being used in the UK does not totally guarantee secrecy and anonymity. This is because it is possible to link a ballot paper to the voter that cast it. Each ballot paper is individually numbered and each elector has a given number. When an elector is given a ballot paper, his/her number is noted down on the counterfoil of the ballot, which carries the ballot paper number. This implies that the ballot is not secret at all.
This instance shows that secret ballot system is only secret at the individual level, but voter preference is known to others including electoral officials and party representatives. The danger, therefore, is that, it can expose many people to insecurity.
Judicial-electoral fraud The electoral act or the constitution of each country empowers the court or tribunals to arbitrate electoral conflicts. Electoral malpractice at the level of the judiciary can be described as quantitatively different in that judicial pronouncements can legalise or validate fraudulent elections or invalidate and annul elections considered by the electorate to be legal. Judicial arbitration which may stretch to the apex court, the Supreme Court, depending on the individual state's constitutional provisions, is often the final thereby legalising the illegality.
Political/ economic costs of electoral fraud:
Apart from the huge amounts spent to conduct elections, voting, rigging and other electoral fraud have its costs. Perceived vote rigging, falsification of results, annulment of elections, particularly when opponents are assumed to have won a critical election as the cases in Algeria in 1992 and Nigeria in 1993, and mandate stealing as the case of the governorship election in Ondo State in 1983, are known to have instigated spontaneous violence by the electorate and party supporters. Such electoral violence often leads to wanton destruction of lives and property. Notable politicians are targets of assassination while arson is visited on both public and private property. These negative outcomes are usually common characters of developing democracies especially in Africa. The cost of human lives lost is inestimable. While the cost of materials can only be quantified in terms of enormous billions of dollars. For instance, the Algerian war since 1992, arising from the annulled presidential election which Islamic Fundamentalists were rated to have claimed victory, has cost the country a lot.
Political instabilityElectoral malpractice resulting in large scale electoral violence has on many occasions resulted in political instability, arising from coups and counter-coups. The Buhari-led coup of December, 1983 was precipitated by the electoral violence resulting from the electoral fraud perpetrated by the ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in the election of that year particularly at the governorship level. The civil wars in Rwanda and Cote d'lvoire had electoral fraud-related causes.
Very many ballot techniques abound which tend to make secret ballot system incredible and unreliable. The frauds associated with secret ballot system ultimately rob the majority electorate of their real choice of candidates at elections, and thereby robbing them of their political will. For these reasons, electoral democracy is seen as a hoax.
Interrogating Causes Of Electoral Irregularities Problems associated with the management of electoral process at all stages is a major feature of Nigerian democracy. Since independence, no election has been conducted without resulting in controversies and some degrees of violence. Rigging and violence are synonymous with the nation's electoral practice.
What factors promote election irregularities in Nigeria?Some of the causes include:
(a) Power-for-Life Syndrome. Nigerian power holders/political leaders, like in many other African countries, suffer the weakness of not being able to voluntarily relinquish power for reasons which include the continued enjoyment of the perquisites of office, corruption, fear of the unknown future including being probed by the succeeding regime and not becoming relevant again. Consequently, power-holders, and new power-seekers struggle at length to recapture or win the election at all costs in deference to democratic principles, including fairness and freeness of elections. Instead of being elected on the basis of popular votes, 'winners' are allocated votes in a compensatory manner. Such allocation of votes has adverse implications on performance. According to Dowding, when power is not won, but allocated on a compensatory basis, the tendencies are that such a power can easily be circumvented to denude it of autonomy and effect. Such power is, therefore, qualified and may not be able to advance the purpose for which it was sought. Rather, it may be perverted and used to advance some hidden agenda of the human ability to act in connection with others who share similar concerns.
(b) Material poverty and mass unemployment.
Material poverty and mass unemployment are limitations to credible electoral competition. The parlous state of the economy imposes ,mass unemployment on the nation, arising from the collapse of the industrial sector of the economy. Lack of critical production infrastructure, especially electricity, has forced many industries to fold up while their premises are taken over by churches, thereby resulting into worker lay-offs. In addition, to worker lay-offs, school leavers and graduates of higher institutions cannot be absolved into jobs. This is to the extent that it is estimated that about 60 million Nigerian youths are jobless. Many of the jobless now see politics as an industry, and a profession rather than a temporary call to serve the people. Elections are, therefore, 'fought' like 'wars' so as to win at all costs. Those that cannot be elected are converted into political thugs, hired assassins, and ethnic militants. The few that are 'lucky' to be elected or appointed into political offices see it as an opportunity to amass wealth at the cost of the people's welfare and the over-arching national interest. The uncertain future without a guarantee of gainful and stable employment, coupled with the fear of returning to poverty life, encourages political office-holders to hang on to power at all costs with elections corrupted and fought like battles with total zero-sum and win-loss outcomes.
In essence, persistent commission of electoral frauds by Nigerian politicians borders on the political economy of power and greed-driven corruption.
Concluding RemarksThe authencity of any claim to being democratic rests on the quality and credibility of the election process. Election as a major ingredient of popular democracy could be through open or secret ballot system. Most modern democracies adopt secret ballot system.
Nigeria is still in search of a stable ballot system. The balloting trend in the country is unstable as it had been moving from the continuum of secret to open ballot and modified open ballot (or open-secret) systems.
None of these ballot options has been fraud-free since independence. Credibility of the ballot electoral system has been undermined by malpractice arising from power-for--life syndrome, money politics, material and intellectual poverty, ethnic politics and interference by the Presidency and other levels of governance.
Strict secret ballot system remains the best for electoral politics. The nation should, therefore, adopt this in preference to the open ballot system.
Electoral irregularities are, however, common features of transitional democracies because the tradition and culture of genuine democracy and the accompanied ethical standards are yet to have tap roots. Developing democracies such as Nigeria are still undergoing the learning process but with time, and without interventions from the military, the teething problems in terms of electoral malpractice to achieve power at all cost would be overcome. Recent experiences in developed democracies like the United States have shown that no electoral process is perfect and totally free of malpractice.
Concluded.
Prof. Ajayi of the department of political science, University of Ado-Ekiti, presented this paper at a one-day national workshop on "Balloting method for future elections," recently organised by the Electoral Institute, INEC, Abuja.
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