Generation 2000

The conventional wisdom is that a low voter turnout favours the incumbent. So why didn't one of the lowest voter turnouts in Jamaica's electoral history not favour the JLP?

The answer, I think, is fairly simple. The JLP lost because the deck was stacked against them ... using the 40,000 new voters that the PNP said they did not want to be disenfranchised.

Okay, but how exactly did the PNP use those 40,000 to stack the deck in its favour? The answer, again, is fairly simple. They did not use ALL 40,000 ... but they did use some selectively.

To explain, let's divide the 40,000 into 3 groups: 1) those who got enumerated on their own, 2) those whom the JLP had enumerated and 3) those whom the PNP enumerated.

The stacking was effective NOT because of how many new voters were enumerated, BUT where they were enumerated. Whereas the persons in the first two groups above were enumerated across all 63 constituencies, the persons that were enumerated by the PNP were enumerated in select constituencies. The strategy was to out-enumerate the JLP in the marginal constituencies.

If you want to know why I believe this, listen to two interviews:

1) the last interview Garfield Burford did with Don Anderson on CVM's Direct before the election, and;

2) the interview DK Duncan gave, in which he was explaining why he was so confident despite the polls showing him trailing Paula Kerr-Jarrett.

As you listen to the interview with Don Anderson, listen to the reason he gave for calling the seat for DK. He said something about seeing some figures. And as you listen to the interview with DK, listen to what he said about the number of persons the PNP had added to the updated list, as a proportion of the total number of new persons added to the list.

Personally, I believe that what the PNP did was begin by targeting certain marginal seats (like DK's, Andre Hylton's, Lloyd B Smith's, Damion Crawford's, Richard Creary's, etc) and key seats (like Andrew Holness' and Bunting's).

Once the chosen seats had been identified, the next step was to scour those seats for 18- and 19-year olds for enumeration.

Once the new people were added, all that was left was to make sure they voted on election day (by any means necessary).

I don't put much stock in island-wide polls (such as those with sample sizes of 1008 persons across 63 constituencies) ... although I am prepared to put more confidence in parish polls and canvases (including those done by G2K) ... but I think the strategy I have outlined can explain why the JLP may not have picked up the kind of shifts we saw taking place.

I think it can also explain why Don Anderson's lists of safe seats and marginal seats were so different from that of other pollsters ... and why he was prepared to go out on a limb about some others (like Ken Baugh's). In a word, he had "insider information". I think he had seen some evidence of the strategy.

I realize this may sound like some kind of conspiracy theory and I haven't done any checks ... but I think if you were to check the degree of increase in the numbers of enumerated persons in each constituency, then you will find that there was a disproportionate increase in those seats that Don Anderson was prepared to put in the "safe" column for the PNP.

In summary, why did the JLP lose? It has nothing to do with Mannatt or Dudus. It has nothing to do with Andrew Holness losing his shine. It is because the JLP was out-enumerated by the PNP in certain seats that were seen as marginal/critical.

By playing fair ... and allowing the 40,000 persons to be added to the list ... the JLP was actually playing into the hands of the PNP.

Cheers,

G2K Member
(Jamaica)
 

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