Voter Behaviour - Changing or static

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Dr. H. Kwame Afaglo 2009

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Voting is the legitimate process of establishing one’s preference for a variable (an object or issue or person) among other like-for-like competing variables. Inferring from the definition above, the factors to contend with are: Legitimacy of electoral process Choice Like-for-like competing variables

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Factors in voting Like-for-like competing variables/candidates. Observably, kick-starting the discussion from the bottom factor would help the build-up sequentially. Vacancy announcement – Vacant position(s) must be publicised and all members of the concerned society should be adequately informed, per mass media (TV, billboards, advertisements, leaflets, posters, internet), letters, email among others. Candidates or variables presented before electorates, must meet defined criteria that is ratified and made legitimate by society or community to be led or governed.

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Candidate selection criteria must not be set by one body for another, since it would lack the sensitive condition of cultural fairness. Further, the candidate selection rules must be subject to revision as of when need be, and this must be ratified by the electorates (voting public) preferably a referendum. These rules must not be ratified by a non-representative select few, else its contemptuous and brews discord.

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Groups that default on the mentioned candidate selection criteria only results into either installing a leader without electorates support or leading by proxy, both which are considered illegitimate and eventually causes chaos in that society. The ‘Orange revolution’ of Ukraine from late 2004 to 2005 is a classic example.

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Voluntary presentation for leadership role – Individuals must be free to present themselves for leadership positions that are available in the society. Also, individuals must be encouraged and not coerced into service rendering roles against their wish. Such situations only leads to non-inspiring leadership within the defined period. Another form of coerced submission is that of leadership by appointment. Although, the appointed leader in an attempt to gain legitimacy among members of the society by way of sanctioning some inappropriate demands, he or she would still be regarded as an ineffective leader.

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Fairness and Openness – All candidates must be given equal opportunities to canvass for votes, with at least minimal societal funding and in a secured environment. In return, candidates should be open in their proposed policies, open to public scrutiny, accepting interested individuals irrespective of gender, religion, ethnicity and other stereotypes. Societies that ignore basic funding for candidates, lean towards corrupt leadership and malfeasance in public services. Unfortunately, some developing economies Police force have fallen into this bracket, though unjustifiable, it is linked to corruption at high places and leadership selection bias.

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static The earlier mentioned conditions serves the purpose of giving the society concerned the chance of choosing the leadership of its kind and deserve, opportunity to present the most suitable candidate, legitimacy, popular acceptance and fair prospect of all members to become leaders and followers with will and commitment. Choice – The focus here is on electorates and their rights and behavioural dynamics during electioneering period. Universal Adult Suffrage – This is the right entitling all adults (as defined by society) to vote and the opportunity to vote. The right for an adult to vote is based on who is an adult?

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Most legislated defined adulthood for voting is from eighteen (18) years as defined by society’s laws. Australia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Ghana, USA and others have 18 years as the minimum voting age. Brazil, Canada, Vienna have sixteen (16) years as the minimum age for municipal elections. Universal Adult Suffrage does eliminate conditions as owner ship of property, gender, race etc as bases for consideration as a voter. Under Apartheid, the South African laws debarred non-whites from voting, some states in USA disenfranchise the poor on grounds of their inability to pay taxes and on benefits, before 1944 women in France were not allowed to vote.

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Opportunity to vote is one of the sensitive factors of the Universal Adult Suffrage – Some communities do deny some eligible electorates the chance to exercise their right to vote. Hence, disenfranchised adults neither have much concern for and commitment to leadership nor do they seem to demand their rights. A case in point is the recent Afghanistan elections with reported high rates of disenfranchisement and electoral frauds. It is reported some locations were purportedly inaccessible because they are strong opposition (Taliban) zones among other claims. Recall, the current Afghanistan leader Mr. Karzai is an Anglo-America imposition on the people of Afghanistan cum the alleged voter disenfranchisement are both against voting behaviour.

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Galbraith, P. did confirm the earlier view that ‘These were polling centres that had a physical location on a map in areas that were so insecure or even controlled by the Taliban, they actually were never going to open in those locations. Of course, the locations would therefore be inaccessible to candidate agents, to observers and to voters so there'd be nobody to check that voting didn't take place there and the election staff who reported to what was called an independent Election Commission but was actually a pro-Karzai body, those staff were able themselves to produce a fraudulent ballot or fraudulent tallies because in many cases they didn't even bothered to stuff the ballot boxes’ (2009)

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Another blow to ‘opportunity to vote’ is the inconvenience from long queues during voting, accessibility to pooling stations, financial lost to voters and governing body. The picture below confirms the blow to ‘opportunity to vote’.

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Further inhibition to ‘opportunity to vote’ is insecurity and intimidation of section of electorates. As a basic voting pre-requisite is that; electorates must FREE FROM FEAR. This guarantees electorates their fundamental right of choice and human rights. An electioneering environment that is rife with the potential of intimidation and fear is unhealthy, increase voting financial cost in terms of deploring Police offices at polling stations, abusive, suspected electoral fraud leading to lost of confidence in elected candidate and its ramifications. The next picture points to issue discussed.

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Identification – Proper identification of individual voter is another paramount condition to elections. Besides registering as a qualified voter, the onus falls on the electoral body to confirm the identity of applicant based on legal requirements and address for confirmation.

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Why people vote for particular candidate Among the many reasons why individuals prefer a particular candidate or group to others include the following: Traditional, personality, body type, appearance, topical issues, change, gender, religion etc. Traditional – members of a particular group that has strong internal bonding are more inclined to vote en-bloc for an in-group member who is contesting or as directed by their headperson.

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Everybody yearns to satisfy his or her sense of belonging; be it family, school mates or work colleagues, etc. Hence the propensity to vote for in-group member(s) who is contesting for leadership role is high. This accounts for political party formations of whose membership are those who share about the same ideology or philosophy or set of believe systems. Strong internal bonding coupled with broad membership base creates a potentially winning team. Conformity tends to be high for whoever the team projects as a candidate.

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Personality – some electorates exhibit their bias for candidates who they perceive to share the same personality with. Say, gender orientation (bisexual, homosexual, heterosexual), active and buoyant physical mannerisms, quite and deep thinking, etc. This can be observed when young voters tend to prefer active, buoyant and young (middle age) candidates to the elderly ones. Personality alignment was one of the main contributing source of vote for Mr. Obama in 2008 US elections.

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Drehle, D. V. puts youth vote alignment as: ‘Kids like Maddie Esposito are the muscle of Obama's army. His campaign has become the first in decades — maybe in history — to be carried so far on the backs of the young. His crushing margin of victory in Iowa came almost entirely from voters under 25 years old, … In South Carolina on Saturday, Jan. 26, Obama's better than 3-to-1 advantage among under-30 voters more than neutralized Clinton's narrower edge among over-65s’ (2008)

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Body type and Appearance – Technically, these are forms of personality under discussion. Psychological studies have pointed to preference for tall and energetic individuals as very likely to be chosen by electorates, much as it also claims ‘appearance can be deceptive’. Voters also seem to connect with candidates who they share about the same dressing styles, and distance themselves from alien dressing.

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Topical issues – Much as traditional voting patterns form significant votes cast by electorates, there is a growing number of voters who depend on candidates response and sense of direction on topical issues affecting the society. This is partly driven on the back of the media in the form of presidential debates, political party debates, party broadcast, parliamentary debates etc. The drift from paper based media to internet social networking sites is causing a potent and vibrant change in the dynamics of voting.

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Change – Periodically, voters become inclined towards an alternative leadership or approach based on perceived unfavourable experience under current leadership, devolution and self governance, among others. Change paradigm is inevitable, hence it can not be resisted unending. The longer the ‘change’ is resisted, the worse of the ramifications of the fall. The persistence of the Nmyemar anti-government protests against the junta (illegitimate) for reasons as fuel price hikes, proxy leadership among others would eventually pull the government (China’s proxy) down and at the high cost.

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Another example, is the UK coal miners industrial actions of 1984 – 1985 that eventually lead to the exist of the Conservative party and ushered in the Labour party for over a decade of continuous rule. An anticipated devolution is that of the United Kingdom, with a growing number of Scots obsessed with self rule. Gender – For far too long a time, leadership is known as the preserve of men. Therefore, should

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static a female present herself as a candidate, she is more likely to get sympathetic votes from women besides other reasons. Emotion – Change, religion, gender and xenophobia in leadership contest serves as fertile grounds for emotions to play a major part of votes cast. ‘When emotion comes through the door, reasoning gets out of the window’ It’s a common saying that contains some facts. All the same, societies must properly integrate religion,

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static gender fair and minimal xenophobic tendencies during leadership contest to remain a peaceful and progressive one. Religion – Religious prejudice forces its members to vote in a defined pattern, that is restrictive and against choice. Its commonplace knowledge that, in a society that religion is highly held, Christians would vote for their projected candidate and Moslems would equally vote for theirs. Hence we have political parties as: Islamic Action Front of Jordan, Islamic Democratic Party of Rwanda, and Christian Democratic Party UK, etc.

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static With communities growing into cosmopolitans (mix-ethnic), eventually extreme religious preconceptions that has dividing us, hopefully would be a thing of the past per vehicles as internet, mobile phones, etc. Legitimacy of electoral process – The electoral process is a major contributing factor to peace, fairness and progress for the community. Hence any malfeasance within the process could be catastrophic.

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static The electoral process takes care of; Registering and educating eligible voters Registering, regulating and monitoring contestants Providing facilities for polling (ballot papers, ink, pencil, pen, etc) Ensuring polling stations are established at all defined positions to cover all registered voters Ensuring polling is carried out in a peaceful and fair environment. Ensuring all voters are given the equitable opportunity to exercise their rights.

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Counting and declaring the polling results. Proposing rules for election. The concept of identifying eligible voters solely by house addressing system needs to evolve as technology has evolved with time. Just as some electoral commissions (authority responsible for elections) are using the internet for registering voters, so are others especially businesses as PricewaterhouseCoppers, Internet Society of Ghana engaged in internet voting.

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static United Kingdom combines both paper and pen registration with online registration of voters. Other communities still encourage individuals to walk to a physical point (voter registration points) to register for the sole purpose of identification and eligibility. Inasmuch as physical identification is still valid, equally so is that of the PIN (Personal Identification Number) system highly used by the commercial banks for card, telephone and online banking. Integrating the PIN system into voting process implies electronic and

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static online voting could equally be incorporated. The United States of America (US) national poliing are into electronic voting but not yet online. UK parliament is still debating both electronic and online voting. A growing number of countries as Sweden, Germany, South Korea, India among others are also debating the integration of online voting into their electoral system. Online voting must be modelled on the lines of the traditional voting process so as to further minimise fraud, boost trust and increase voter participation.

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Reservations against online voting Despite the increasing use of internet across ages, its inclusion into the voting process is projected a number of sensitive doubts as; access to internet, identification, security, virus and re-count of ballots. a. Access to internet – Although the level of internet usage is not in every home yet, the rate of growth is encouraging and sufficient for the purpose of inclusion in the voting process. The data on page 32 points to internet serving as an opportunity

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static to be seized as a means of indicating preference by users, i.e. voting, buying behaviour, etc. Further, the table confirms a more than normal growth rate of internet use globally, with Middle East and Africa catching up with the rest of the world. An estimated 74 per cent of the US population use internet, Oceania and Australia has 60.4 per cent coverage, 52 per cent is the coverage of Europe. Inferring from the growth rates, it would not be long before the whole world is substantially covered.

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Regional internet use - World Population Statistics

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Sceptics of internet use for voting have a point as to the low coverage of internet in Asia, Africa and Middle East. These regions serves as business opportunities for internet investors. b. Identification – Unlike small communities where visual and family lineage is known to almost all members, today's cosmopolitan communities partly invalidates that form of identification. Communities with well kept and maintained birth and death digital registry could liaise between individuals and

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static electoral bodies. This would minimise unqualified individuals from entering the voters register through the online option. c. Security and virus - The traditional use of inking finger(s) and kiosks as a case of preventing double voting is claimed an impossibility for online voting. However, electronic voting and online voting could use, chip and pin, PIN and a secured platform solely for voting. This, to a large extend would minimise the fear of internet insecurity. The banks have shown the way with the use of these features (PIN, chip and pin, secured platform)

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static The sensitive issue of hackers can not easily be discounted. However, a growing number of firms are developing better platforms which are relatively secured than previously thought. d. Re-count of ballot – With paper and pen voting (the traditional ballot casting) system, this can easily be recounted, whenever results are contested. In fact, vote re-counts are a common practice. The doubts about the inability of online

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static voting software to account for re-count is a thing of the past. Online voting software have vote bank as integral part, such that individual voters and groups could monitor live (real time) ballot casting for monitoring purposes, later checks and validity. With the growing and affordable use of electronic devices and internet vis-à-vis their influence on our daily lives, electronic and online voting is become inevitable for both decision makers and electorates. Electronic and online voting is the change to be

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static integrated into the electoral system with anticipated positive results as: increasing inclusion of youth in political participation, circumventing voter apathy, cost effective, safe time and convenience. Online voting could be the viable alternate for societies that intends to have an all inclusive polling with their members outside its physical polling stations and at minimal cost. Especially, states with significant number of nationals living abroad who contribute meaningfully to its growth, yet do not have voting rights due to distance, must consider online voting. Eg, Ghana, India and others.

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Integrating online voting is the way forward in today’s global village in the face of growing strength in the usage of social networking sites (twitter, bebo, facebook, etc) and other interfaces as YouTube etc. Aggressive political campaigning would soon be observed on social networking sites.

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static References: Drehle, D. V. (2008) The Year of Youth Vote Available from http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1708570,00.html [Accessed 30 November 2009] Galbraith, P. (2009) Electoral fraud in Afghanistan Available from http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2009/s2707640.htm [Accessed 29 November 2009] Interenet Usage Statistics (2009) Available from http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm [Accessed 1 December 2009]

Voter behaviour – Changing or static : Voter behaviour – Changing or static Thank you From to ‘Change is inevitable’