Does the EBC deserve a national award?

The Trinidad Guardian editorial paid tribute to the Elections and Boundaries Commission of T&T (EBCTT) and went as far as recommending they be considered as '... potential recipients for this nation’s highest Independence Day award ...'

I disagree.

While the EBCTT has successfully facilitated several elections since 1961, there are some issues that need to be addressed before they could be considered as being worthy of a national award, especially our highest award.

The first has to do with the state of the List of Electors.  This year it crossed one million for the first time, but the increase from 2007 to 2010 is far above the expected rate of increase given our death, birth and migration rates.  In fact, I know of several migrants whose names are still on the list.  So that list doesn't appear to be accurate to me, though I can't say if the level of inaccuracy would significantly impact on the voting outcomes.  After nearly fifty years, one would think that maintenance of an accurate List of Electors should be a basic requirement.

Secondly, though they deserve some credit the EBCTT is still very much in the dark ages when it comes to information sharing and management.  First the credit.  I don't know when computing expert Dr Noel Kalicharan became a member of the EBCTT board member, but his presence gives me some hope that thing will improve.  In 2010, voters were able to check if their names were on the List of Electors for the first time via their website.  The tool was not user-friendly in the run-up to this year's General Election, but this has since been changed: the instructions on how to use the search tool are now simpler yet clearer.  So there is some will to improve things.

However, the rest of the website is poor as a source of information.  When analysing the recent results, I sought official data from past General Elections (specifically those from 1991 to 2007).  I could not find details of the number of votes for each candidate by constituency.  Their Historical Data webpage gives summary data for General and Tobago House of Assembly Elections from 1946 to 2007.  I thus sent a request to the EBCTT via their one of the three e-mail contact address provided on their website - the one for Research Information requests (which goes to their Research Officer): ebc.research@gmail.com (the others are ebc.pro@gmail.com for their Public Relations Officer and ebc.feedback@gmail.com for general comments and suggestions).  This raised the initial question: why is a government body using Google Mail for communication with the public?  They should have their own private e-mail system.

I sent the request on 12 May 2010.  i received the following response on 17 May 2010:
-- Start --
Dear Sir,
 
We have Reports available for sale which contains the detailed information you are asking for, one is produced after each election, and are 50.00 per copy. You can visit our Stores Section at the Central Electoral Office, Scott House POS, for purchase.
 
Regards,
-- End --

Now, there are several things wrong with this response (apart from the grammatical/typographical errors):

• The e-mail had no signature, so I have no idea who responded;
• I specifically requested that the data be sent via e-mail since I was abroad;
• Why should I have to pay extra for data when the EBCTT is completely funded by my taxes?

I promptly replied to the EBC's Research Officer to re-iterate that I was unable to visit their office in POS as suggested and asked if the data could be sent to me online.  I am yet to get a response, seven weeks after asking.  This customer service is unacceptable.  I eventually had to use unofficial results from a third-party's website for my analysis.

Now, I'm hoping to analyse the Local Government results of 26 Jul 2010 against past results.  Guess what?  The EBCTT website has no Local Government data at all.  In this case, the EBCTT is as bad as the government is in general when it comes to provision of information via websites.  There is a website for Local Government-related data, but it does not appear to contain up-to-date listings of the current Local Government councillors and aldermen (see the example for San Fernando which still lists ex-MP Junia Regrello as an alderman and does not state which political party each councillor belonged to).

So the EBCTT has some way to go to improve its website.  In comparison, have a look at the UK's Electoral Commission website, where one may get detailed results in various formats online for all elections from 2001 onwards (for all types), as well as general information regarding how they conduct their elections.  The EBCTT's website is better in one respect: it gives summary data prior to 2001 (though details are lacking).

The last reason why I think the EBCTT is not yet ready for a national award has to do with the results of a review, dated 11 Dec 2000, conducted by the Commonwealth Observer Group (COG) of the General Elections of 2000, which are publicly available online.  This report lists a few concerns related to the EBCTT, though none caused them to conclude that the election was unfairly conducted.  For example: "Some elements in the process surprised us. We noted that in several places there was no official announcement of the final result at the constituency centre once all the ballot boxes and Statements were in; although protected by police the cars used to transport the Presiding Officer, boxes, results form, staff and police were almost always the private cars of one of the election staff; and in some places the party agents did not attend to the counting arrangements as thoroughly as they had to the voting."

Even though the EBCTT was subjected to a Commission of Enquiry since then, I'm not sure that the COG's issues have been addressed.  On 24 May 2010, I observed the results via C TV's online video stream (hats off to state-owned CNMG for the quality of their show and for ensuring that the online stream never broke down).  At the end of the show, there was no formal declaration of the results for several constituencies.  As shown in the COG's report, this lack of formal declaration existed since 2000.  Instead, it seemed as though folks generally accepted that the People's Partnership had won the majority of the seats, but didn't care much for the details.  We had no idea which seats were subjected to recounts.  In fact, up to today, the EBCTT website does NOT have summary results of the General Elections 2010: why?

Contrast this with the UK experience.  Once the count has been concluded, the results in each constituency are publicly stated by the Returning Officer or the Acting Returning Officer.  In most cases, the results are carried live by the media.  The candidates who contested the seat are normally present when the results are read out, and stand on the platform/stage behind the Returning Officer.  Once the results are read out, the candidates shake hands and then, beginning with the winner, give brief speeches to thank those responsible for the conduct of the poll and their competitors for their behaviour during the campaign.  The official results are provided on the Electoral Commission website within hours.  The UK's Electoral Commission can quickly publish data - freely - for 649 seats: why can't the EBCTT do this for 41 seats?

In conclusion, the EBCTT deserves to be commended for their legacy of facilitating our planned and snap elections given the resources provided.  However, given that the Internet has been around for years and the Board included members with computing experience for well over a decade, the EBCTT's poor public relations and information management and slow response to concerns which were raised since 2000 leads me to conclude that they are not yet worthy of our highest national award.