By Dylan Vernon, TIME COME #17, 4 December 2024.
A curious thing happened when I applied in July 2024 to transfer my voter registration to the constituency of my current residence. As I was leaving the elections office, a woman in the waiting area demanded a copy of my receipt and proceeded to fire off personal questions. I had seen her do the same thing to other people who provided the requested information – ostensible thinking it was all official. It took me a few seconds to realise something was off. I asked her if this was an official part of the transfer process, and she answered ‘yes’ without hesitation. I asked the registering officer if this was true, and the answer was a quiet but clear ‘no’. The woman was actually a paid partisan operative, one of many in every division nationwide collecting transfer and registration data on voters. The blatant deception really ticked me off. More substantively, it reminded me of the deep-rooted fraud of illicit voter transfers that pollutes Belize’s electoral democracy every summer. Prime Minister John Briceño refers to it as a ‘can of worms’ that no party wants to open.
The Voter Transfer Game
Registered voters who move residence to another electoral division within Belize are required by the Representation of the People Act to officially transfer to the new division after two months of residence there. Annually, the months of July and August are set aside for transfers, as well as for objections. According to the Elections and Boundaries Department (EBD), well over 5,000 voters transferred to another division in 2024. On the surface, that could add up to as many as 25,000 transfers in an average election cycle; however, there are always spikes in the year before an election.
But what proportion of transferees actually transfer legally? I contend that it is a minority and that the prevalence of illicit voter transfers is a one of Belize’s more visible symptoms of a sick electoral democracy. This is exacerbated by the related practice of new (first-time) voters registering in divisions they don’t reside.
In the pursuit of electoral advantage, politicians from both major parties induce voters to illegally transfer to, or register in, divisions where they do not reside. Generally, politicians identify ‘buildings’ in their divisions and then induce voters from other divisions to use these ‘false’ addresses to facilitate illegal transfers. Instances of dozens of persons using the same address to transfer are many. Often, the buildings are not residences or are too small to logically accommodate stated numbers. In one case, the address was an open lot.
For the most part, the illicit part of voter transfers has become normal political behaviour and is done with great impunity. Annually, candidates of the two major political parties engage in open battles at the constituency level to get transfers. The ’science’ behind all this would make for interesting research. The conventional wisdom is that politicians who have won by large majorities may ‘give up’ some transfers to a colleague of the same party in a marginal division. It must be a risky business to find that right balance and avoid intra-party disputes. And as voters move on and off the transfer merry-go-round, isn’t some of the effort counterproductive as transfers cancel each other out?
There is also no independent research or analysis on the total number of objections or the record of results. However, my own considered observation is that the number of objections made is a tiny fraction of the total of actual illicit registrations and transfers. Furthermore, the success rate of the few objections that do make it to a magistrate’s court is extremely low. For something as tangible as determining where someone resides, ilicit voter transfers seems surprisingly difficult to prove.
Noteworthy Examples
One colourful example of the voter transfer game is from September 2011, just before the 2012 general election. Gilroy Usher, the PUP candidate for Port Loyola charged that the UDP incumbent (Anthony ‘Boots’ Martinez) was “padding the election list…[by] the fraudulent transfer of over 140 persons in the Port Loyola division who have not lived in the division for even a single day”. Usher also accused the EBD of not processing the objections in a timely manner, which resulted in them not being heard in court. Unsurprisingly, the candidate for the UDP side laid similar accusations about his opponent padding the election list. In the end, it all fizzled out.
One high-profile recent example is that of the Honourable Moses ‘Shyne’ Barrow, the Leader of the Opposition (United Democratic Party) and elected representative for the Mesopotamia division. During the 2023 transfer period, Barrow transferred his voting residence to his constituency office in the Mesopotamia division. The incumbent People’s United Party (PUP) objected to this transfer and took the matter to court.
The PUP alleged that Barrow committed election fraud by transferring to a place he did not live, and that he should be expelled from the National Assembly if found guilty of this election related offence – as the Constitution requires. In November 2023, the Chief Magistrate ruled that the PUP objectors failed to prove that Barrow was illegally registered to vote in Mesopotamia. The case turned on legal technicalities and loopholes, including that the objectors could not prove that Barrow never resided at the residence at the time of registration.
Testing the Law in Cayo North
A rather interesting voter transfer skirmish is currently taking place in the Cayo North division. Since August 2024, Dr. Omar Figueroa, the standard bearer for the Opposition UDP, has been highly persistent in challenging the transfer of some voters to his division. He alleged these voters may not reside at the addresses stated and insinuated that the transfers were orchestrated by his PUP opponent’s camp. During the 2024 transfer period, Figueroa filed objections to 101 voters. In a noteworthy decision in October 2024, the Magistrate Court, after making on-site visits, halted the transfer of all the voters. The case is now on appeal with the High Court.
But the tenacious Figueroa did not stop there. He broke new ground by using the process of the annual review of the divisional voter’s list (required to be published each year before October 1) to object to over a hundred registered voters on the Cayo North voter’s list. The allegation was that they had registered in a division they did not reside. In her ruling on 27 November, the Magistrate struck 24 voters off the list. Thereafter, Figueroa wrote to the Chief Elections Officer, in essence, alleging that the EBD was not doing enough to investigate election fraud around voter transfer and registrations.
This Cayo North episode has sparked a small debate on electoral fraud. Few if any other candidates have had such initial, if still partial, success as Figueroa in getting a significant number of voters struck off a voters list. Will this eventually fail and fade away like all the others before it? Will colleagues in Figueroa’s own party seek to rein him in for fear of themselves coming under scrutiny? Whatever happens, Dr. Figueroa deserves credit for further testing the efficacy of the Representation of the People Act and of the EBD.
Fuelling the Game
In terms of motivations, voter transfers fall into three broad categories. There are those few law-abiding voters who do it because they have verifiably moved to reside in another division. This was my motivation in July 2024.
Then there are those voters who transfer out of their division of residence because they desire to vote for a candidate in another division. The motivation here could be familial connections, friendship, admiration for a particular candidate, or conversely dislike of candidates in their ‘real’ division. Whatever the motivation, voters in this second category are also breaking the election law and if found guilty can be fined or face prison time. They also risk disenfranchisement.
Finally, there is the most worrying category: those voters who illegally transfer divisions based on transactional agreements made with politicians or political operatives. Their motivation is to receive favours or the promise of favours from politicians. I contend that these have become the largest proportion of transferees by far. This was certainly what I deduced in my 2022 book Political Clientelism and Democracy in Belize: From My Hand to Yours.
In the book, I identified ‘transferring or not transferring to another constituency’ as one of 17 types of voter political currency that could be ‘bought’ by politicians in exchange for a range of resources and favours. These can include cash, getting on the food basket list, payment of bills, payment of school fees, yard fill, land, jobs, references for government services and so on. In other words, this illegal aspect of the voter transfer process is another element of the practice of entrenched handout politics in Belize.
The motivations of those voters who are compensated or promised compensation for the act of transferring divisions can seem rational in the context of poverty, inequality and greed. However, providing false information on residency status to change divisions (at the request of politicians) is not that much different from accepting bribes to vote for these politicians in an election. By law, both could lead to fines or prison time or disenfranchisement – but never do.
For the politicians the motives are crystal clear: winning the next constituency election by any means necessary in Belize’s first-past-the-post electoral system. In fact, next to election day itself, the annual two-month transfer period is likely where most close constituency elections are won and lost. The better a politician’s machinery for transferring voters to his/her division and keeping her/his voters from transferring out, the greater the chance of winning. And the more money and access to public resources a politician has, the greater the odds of winning the transfer game.
In sparsely populated countries like Belize, elections at the constituency level can turn on a few dozen votes, and winning the voter transfer game is a critical indicator of electoral success. Like the weekly expenses of operating partisan clinics in constituencies, the transfer period is costly for politicians. This is partly why most of the resources that politicians need to win an election are expended well before election day rolls around.
An Emasculated Electoral Machinery
In relation to voter transfers, the Representation of the People Act gives the EBD responsibility and powers to ensure that there is fairness, transparency and accountability in the process. Not only is the EBD responsible for confirming that transferees reside where they claim, but the Department is also to proactively keep track of when voters change addresses and ensure that transfers happen in these cases. These are, of course, on top of all the other electoral responsibilities that the EBD has, including managing elections and mitigating voter-bribery.
In interviews I did for my 2022 book, election officers acknowledged being very aware of the partisan and transactional aspect of the transfer game – that includes transferees showing politicians a copy of their receipts as proof. However, the officers lamented the lack of resources of the EBD, especially to do on-site checks effectively. In short, abuses of the transfer process are so widespread that it is near impossible for the EBD, with limited human and financial resources, to make but a small dent. This is partly why no politician or voter has ever been successfully prosecuted, fined or jailed for election fraud in Belize.
This electoral machinery vacuum is willingly filled by the political parties. Political opponents monitor the registering and transferring activities of each other – leading to allegations and counter-allegations of fraud by opponents. In this partisan part of the game, the incumbent party is perceived to have advantage, as it has the majority of members on the Elections and Boundaries Commission, holds the budgetary purse strings for the EBD and can seek to influence who works there. In short, the institutional weaknesses and relative lack of independence of Belize’s electoral machinery facilitate the partisan voter transfer game.
Bad for Democracy
When viewed through the lens of rampant political clientelism – where politicians hand out resources and services to voters in return for political support – the abuse of the voter transfer system is one more stain on formal and social democracy in Belize. It contributes to at least three sets of problems.
Perhaps most visible are the problems for our electoral democracy. Representative democracy is based on the premise that citizens in a certain community elect someone to represent their needs in the House of Representatives. If a large number of voters do not live in the divisions they vote in, it makes a mockery of representative democracy. Additionally, elections at every level, including general elections, can and do turn on who is most successful at illicit transfers. One collateral damage is the locking out of alternative voices and under-represented groups who either frown on illicit voter transfers or cannot afford it. What does this all mean for our national boast of having free and fair elections?
The second set of problems relate to political corruption. Where does the money, resources and services come from that politicians use to barter for illicit voter transfers? In general terms, we know that some come from the public purse and some from private donations. Both create opportunities for private gains not only for the politicians and some voters but also for donors – who get ‘returns on their investments’. Accountability and transparency challenges are clearly endemic to the voter transfer game because politicians, donors and those voters who do benefit are all incentivised to keep the transactions secret. In short, the illicit voter transfer game contributes to the wider waste and abuse of public resources, to the loss of needed public revenue, to the stifling of governance reforms, and to big money calling more shots.
Finally, there are problems for people’s development and social welfare. As I argue in my 2022 book, in a context of great social need, inequality and inadequate social welfare, poor people do benefit from transactional exchanges, such as agreeing to illegally transfer to another division. However, most benefits are immediate and short term and do not address root causes and longer-term solutions. The distributive benefits for individuals are heavily outweighed by the overall damaging effects. Importantly, the transfer game contributes to politicians being year-round welfare agents and gift-givers – bartering almost every needed or wanted resource for political gain. It also exposes that the political parties are ‘policy lazy’ and have little self-confidence or interest in winning elections based primarily on distinctive policy records, policy proposals and visionary leadership.
Opening the Can of Worms
Prime Minister Briceño is right in saying that neither major party wants to open the can of worms that is voter transfer fraud. In his interview on the Cayo North developments, he noted allegations of UDP politicians engaging in similar acts – a sort of warning that ‘we all live in glass houses’.
We know that since independence, both major parties in Belize have evolved to engage in voter transfer fraud equally. In the fierce competition for electoral advantage, politicians of both the PUP and the UDP now view the annual transfer period, as well as the registering of new voters, as prime opportunities to increase their chances of winning. For the most part, both major parties ignore most of the other party’s fraud as long as the other party ignores theirs. Now and again, a frustrated politician, like Figueroa, complains publicly or takes legal action when the transfer numbers raise alarms. But the trend has been that nothing changes, and the game expands.
In essence, the voter transfer war is largely of the cold variety and the extent of its obscenity is rarely exposed much less addressed. Like hand-out politics as a whole, neither major party will unilaterally refrain from these illicit and damaging practices. It is in this sense that it is a partisan cold war. Neither side will ‘disarm’ first, even when both sides are well aware of the negative consequences of their actions. They will use the tired throwaway excuse of helping the people.
Of course, the politicians of the PUP or UDP won’t open this can of worms on their own. This is not only because of the partisan cold war (who goes first), but also because politicians know they will only find ‘themselves’ squirming in the can. They are the ones who created the mess and perpetuate it. Only ‘the people’ have the right size of can opener needed. But having it and actually using it are two different things.
Que Hacemos?
In the case of voter transfer fraud, the reform solutions are pretty well known. For example, I have argued that our Constitution needs to set the stage by increasing the independence and the resourcing of the election machinery, including reverting the EBD to an independent statutory body under a reformed Elections and Boundaries Commission led by non-partisans. Moving from the first-past-the-post electoral system to one that is proportional would all but eliminate the motivations of illicit voter transfers.
Dr. Philip Castillo is likely correct in arguing that getting on with the long-postponed but constitutionally required re-districting exercise (to have divisions with more or less equal numbers of voters) would de-incentivise illicit voter transfers. This is because most transfers are from divisions with large numbers of voters to those with much fewer.
The Constitution should also provide for the regulation of political parties, campaign finance and political clientelism, and so cause legislation to be enacted for these issues. The Representation of the People Act needs significant reform in terms of increasing powers and capacity for investigating electoral fraud, closing loopholes and increasing penalties. For sure, the term ‘place of residence’ needs to be clearly defined. The impunity for politicians and voters alike must stop. Comprehensive voter education and behavioural change are imperative.
The chances are slim for the current Cayo North episode to be a catalyst for meaningful change, especially as elections loom in 2025. At least Dr. Figueroa is exposing more of the ugly under belly of voter-transfer electoral fraud. Let’s not give up on opening this and other cans of worms as part of the wider long-term process of radical political and constitutional reform.