Flawed lists and ballooned numbers

Jan 14, 2020 Editorial

It is January and we have not progressed, relative to flawed lists and ballooned numbers. They speak for themselves and speak in the sharpest terms as this electoral process unfolds, and set the stage for further acrimony and endless quarrels.
It is not a good place for this society to be, as it is a manifest for crisis, with all the toxic ingredients present. There is a huge differential, as relayed by some numbers that stare in the face and bang in the head. There are just over 83,000 noneligible voters, according to the Revised List of Electors coming from GECOM. Those are citizens under 18 years of age.
Nobody has to be privy to what state agencies have on their books, but clearly and incontestably there are way more than 83,000-plus citizens under age 18. Commonsense, the wisdom of the street, and honest brokers (not political) and agents will be pushed to justify what is patently flawed and wrong.
An anonymous source articulated to the media that the number of citizens under 18 is around 280,000. The difference between the official and unofficial is close to 200,000 names that should not be there as eligible and, in cleaner and clearer circumstances, would not be allowed to exercise their franchise.
For the sake of argument, let’s say it is not a difference of 200,000 persons, but somewhere in the vicinity of 100,000, that still is a material and consequential gap, a gap that holds extreme potential to lead this society down an antagonistic path.
Even accepting and pondering the smaller (100,000) number right away brings to a place of severe contentiousness. For it is a major number, and therein lies grounds for problems and controversies galore going into the future, past March 2nd.
From the vantage point of this early in the year and process, it ought to be inarguable that the groundwork for political obstinacy, at the leadership and group levels, and social ambience of the severest, most testing, nature looms rather menacingly and alarmingly.
Yet there are no indications of movement on any front. Officially, the chair of GECOM has gone on record, as saying thoughtfully and sensibly that “we can’t just remove people’s names because we could not locate them. We don’t have that right to disenfranchise these persons by removing their names from the voters’ list.”
Now, if the overseeing national electoral body is so stymied today – and rightly so, in keeping with judicial pronouncements – then this question can pointedly be asked from now: what will it be in a position to ascertain, finalize, and make public come post March 2nd?
From the perspective of this paper, since the hands of GECOM are short, since the list is terribly troubling, if not outright flawed, then whatever GECOM announces stands a high probability of having no credence, no standing, no traction, and no acceptance.
Let this horror story be dealt with from this young stage of what is obviously a savvy political game, even a scurrilous one, too. It leaves all of us hanging and most likely in a serious state of disarray come the month of March.
It is past the point where whatever had to be given is now outside the pale of consideration. It forms the precursor to where matters promise to be post-March 2nd. To be unflinchingly blunt, and with an eye to local pre-and post-electoral history, it would appear that this nation could find itself back at square one, when the final count -whatever numbers are involved – is flushed out, finalized, and laid before leaders, parties, and peoples.
The final count and the final result would not be found satisfying nor uplifting to somebody on some side of the divide. Commonsense and political environmental sense tells us that that would be losing side, and that will not be taken passively or sitting down.
We certainly were eyewitnesses to the heaving passions and incendiary developments during much of 2019. If that was the temperature then, then what else could be envisioned now, other than more, and to a much more overheated degree, of the same that went before?
Amidst this backdrop about lists and numbers, we go forward. The question is to what.

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