The Safety Of The Voting Rolls in The Bahamas

The New York Times recently published an article about the real threat to democracy given all the chat in the US about the hacking or potential ability not hack their electronic voting systems.  The writer went on to argue that the possibility of a hack was not likely, nor was any actual interference in the voting process. What is the larger issue, the writer argued is the growing lack of confidence in the integrity of the voting, that their vote makes no difference to the result.  He argued that this is the greater problem that we have to address.  We see this seeping into The Bahamas and must fight tooth and nail to end that kind of rot from spreading.  The system we have is fine.  We simply need to continue to vote and to engage, no matter how negative and inattentive to the actual workings of democracy we are.  The fact is the PLP and the FNM pay no attention except at election time to things like democracy itself.  Encouraging people to vote and how to articulate and influence policy. So here we are now, the FNM has sent out a request for proposals for vendors for an electronic platform for voter registration. Earlier, the Minister for the electoral process Marvin Dames had said he wanted to switch to electronic voting. We support the former (electronic registration), we do not agree with the latter. We believe that given the small size of this electorate there is no need for voting machines. What we need is paper ballots and we need a more efficient process of counting.  It takes too long in this small place to count these ballots. We therefore leave this is: register to vote and vote. Speak up. Democracy is the best we have and we must remove this government.  The preferable way of doing is by voting them out.  Say no to electronic voting and yes to electronic voter registration.