Muddy waters: citizenship and the right to vote in the Commonwealth Caribbean migratory context

ABSTRACT

Two global voting trends are noted in the electoral studies literature: the exclusion of resident noncitizens and the inclusion of non-resident citizens in national elections. These two research streams are rarely studied together. By analysing both of these trends in the Commonwealth Caribbean, the article reveals how the assumed relationship between citizenship and the right to vote does not always hold. Citizenship is neither necessary nor sufficient to exercise full political rights. The Commonwealth Caribbean thus diverges from global voting trends and illustrates the complexities and changing shape of the relationship between citizenship and the right to vote.

KEYWORDS:

• Caribbean
• citizenship
• Commonwealth
• migration
• voting

Acknowledgement

The author presented a first draft of this paper at the International Studies Association Annual Convention in San Francisco (2018) and would like to thank Gerasimos Tsourapas for his feedback, as well as the other audienceparticipants. She would to give a special thanks to Victoria Finn for her thorough reading and commentary on the first draft as well.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The terms ‘State’ and ‘country’ are used interchangeably in this paper.

2. For instance, a few U.S. states, such as Connecticut, Delaware and New Mexico, allow resident noncitizens to vote in municipal elections (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2015). See also Earnest (2015, p. 2) for global cities of immigration that have grappled with, and sometimes given, noncitizen residents the right to vote, as well as Arrighi and Bauböck (2017). Furthermore, two recent surveys have identified 45 democracies in which resident noncitizens can vote in at least local elections (Bauböck, 2005; Earnest, 2007). Beside the countries examined in this article, only five other countries allow noncitizens to vote at the national level after a period of residency: Chile, Ecuador, Malawi, New Zealand and Uruguay (Finn, 2018).

3. See IDEA's database on External Voting for the figures (2018d).

4. In French, Ministre des Haïtiens Vivant à l’Etranger; for more information about this government institution, see Government of Haiti (2018).

5. For more information about this Ministry, refer to Government of India (2017).

6. For instance, Ho (2011) discusses how think tanks have taken part in diaspora engagement strategies and Itzigsohn (2000) describes the role of political parties and not-for-profit actors in this realm as well.

7. Refer to Munro (2008), for example.

8. For instance, Earnest (2007).

9. Refer, for example, to McNevin (2011).

10. See, for example, Bauböck (1994, 2005 and 2007), Beckham (2009) and Eisenberg (2015).

11. See, for instance, Earnest (2015) and Finn (unpublished).

12. Consider Délano (2014), Kalm (2013), Ragazzi (2014) and Pedroza and Palop-García (2017a and 2017b).

13. See, for example, Fierro, Morales, and Gratschew (2007), LaFleur (2011 and 2016), and Erlingsson and Tuman (2017).

14. For instance, on ‘extra-territorial citizenship’ see Bauböck (1994, 2007) and Collyer (2014); on ‘deterritorialized’ citizenship, see Ferme (2004) and Teune (2009); and on ‘denationalized’ and ‘postnational’ citizenships see Sassen (2006) and Soysal (1994), respectively.

15. See, for example, the Emigrant Policies Index (EMIX) IDEA's Voting From Abroad database, as well as GlobalCit's Electoral Law Indicators (2018).

16. See, for instance, Collyer (2014) and LaFleur (2011).

17. These territories include the Cayman Islands, Anguilla, Turks and Caicos, the British Virgin Islands and Montserrat.

18. See Perry (2015).

19. To date, of the countries examined in this paper, Barbados, Belize and Guyana do not recognise the British Privy Council as the highest court of appeals, but recognise the authority of the Caribbean Court of Justice instead (Gayle, 2011, p. 128).

20. The Governor General represents the Queen in the domestic context by the Governor General. Sutton (1999) remarks that nine of the 12 Commonwealth Caribbean States recognise the British Queen as Head of State (footnote 7 on p. 84).

21. Other formerly British colonies largely recognise the Queen as Head of the Commonwealth, but not of their State.

22. For information on Commonwealth Member States, see Commonwealth Secretariat (2018).

23. As Perry explains, Commonwealth citizenship ‘articulated a multiracial and transnational vision of Britishness that did not distinguish between colonizers and the colonized’ (2015, p. 58).

24. In practice, however, ‘[t]he Commonwealth ideal’ of ‘a multiracial community cooperating on equal terms in political, economic, and cultural matters’ met its demise by 1965 (Doty, 1996, p. 237 and 250). Furthermore, Fawcett remarks that Commonwealth citizenship arose more out of an interest in self-preservation than out of a shared community of values and equal membership. That is, the British wanted to ensure that former British subjects resident in the newly independent States could ‘preserve the status of … UK citizens, for those who desired it and were faced with its loss on the Commonwealth country in which they lived attaining independence’ (1973, p. 262).

25. Refer to Toxey (1967); also, ‘[a]lthough not all Commonwealth states have adopted the clause, in no one of these states was a British subject regarded as an alien’ (Wilson & Clute, 1963, p. 571). States Blake, ‘These nationals would not be regarded as aliens in the laws of each state although separate immigration laws might limit their entry’ (1982, p. 180).

26. For example, Article 102 of the Dominican Constitution, Article 12 of the Jamaican Constitution, Article 104 of the Saint Lucian Constitution, Article 95 of the St. Vincent and Grenadines Constitution, and Article 21 of the Trinidad and Tobago Constitution.

27. Freedom of movement is a key part of CARICOM's 2015–2019 Strategic Plan because visa requirements are seen as a threat to the Community's economic development (CARICOM, 2014, p. 165 and 188).

28. IDEA's ‘Voting From Abroad’ database includes 20 Caribbean States and British territories; 10 of the 12 countries selected for electoral law reviews are Commonwealth countries.

29. See Koopmans and Michalowski (2017 and 2018) for more information on this project.

30. For more information on this dataset, see the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX, 2015).

31. For instance, Earnest (2006, 2015) and Beckham (2009).

32. In a few cases, such as Trinidad and Tobago, the government body in charge of voter registration asks for specific documents (such as a passport with a stamp of entry) before registering a voter.

33. Refer to Article 25 of the Constitution of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

34. Refer to Article 25 of the Constitution of Saint Lucia.

35. Refer to Article 54(5) of the Belize Constitution for the appointment of Commonwealth citizens to the BAC.

36. The Member of Parliament was Everald Warmington who eventually resigned from his seat, but who later regained it. Then Prime Minister Golding admitted that they kept Warmington's ineligibility to run disclosed as the JLP ‘could not have afforded an earlier resignation since that could have led to it being overthrown by the parliamentary Opposition’ (Dunkley, 2011).

37. Refer to The Gleaner (2017) for the case.

38. In the Jamaica Gleaner's editorial on the subject, it said, ‘That this issue has loomed large for a second time in a decade underlines the need for a full review of these deeply entrenched constitutional clauses and how to define Jamaica beyond the insular state and embracing of its diaspora’ (Jamaica Gleaner, 2017).

39. In the case of Grenada, its Central Statistics Office's pages that may contain this data are under construction.

40. Belize, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago account for the foreign-born population, for example, but do not identify which countries the foreign-born residents are from.

41. According to Table 8.7 (Population by Region and Country of Citizenship by Parish), 84,816 people reside in Antigua and Barbuda. Of this figure, 69,072 hold citizenship from Antigua and Barbuda (82 per cent). 9,919 individuals hold citizenship from Commonwealth Caribbean States (all of the Caribbean Commonwealth countries included in this study with the exception of The Bahamas); while an additional 763 residents hold citizenship from India, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. Those who identify themselves as possessing Commonwealth citizenship thus make up 13 per cent of the total population (or 10,682 individuals). Over a thousand people did not identify their citizenship for the census takers.

42. According to data in Table 04:01 (Population by Country of Birth, Sex and Age Group), 13,162 individuals were born in Commonwealth Caribbean countries in the 20+ age groups, with an additional 3,020 coming from the non-Caribbean Commonwealth countries of Australia, Bermuda, Canada, India and the United Kingdom. The total resident Commonwealth population in the 20+ voting age population, therefore, is 16,182 out of a total 20+ voting age population of 155,105 (10 per cent). Note this figure does not include those individuals whose citizenship is unknown or those who possess Commonwealth citizenship, but who are less than 20 years old since these individuals were grouped together with individuals who could not vote (in the 15–19 age category).

43. That is, 74,711 of 79,271 persons emigrated to Commonwealth Caribbean States other than The Bahamas, which as noted earlier, does not provide Commonwealth citizens the right to vote.

44. The African Commonwealth countries included Botswana, Cameroon, the Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Swaziland, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. The Asian Commonwealth countries included Bangaldesh, Brunei Darussalam, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore and Sri Lanka. The European Commonwealth countries included Cyprus, Malta and the U.K., as well as migration from the British dependencies of Anguilla, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat and Saint Helena. The Pacific Commonwealth countries included Australia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. The American States included the Commonwealth Caribbean countries, as well as Canada.

45. The 2010 figures from the Global Bilateral Migration DataBank are incomplete for these countries, with migration to Grenada completely absent.

46. Articles 49A and B of the Parliamentary Elections (amended 2012) Act provide further details on the polling process for overseas voting (Government of The Bahamas, 2012).

47. Refer to Articles 21 and 22 of the Representation of the People Act (Government of Barbados, 2007).

48. See Article 5(2) of the Belizean Representation of the People Act (Government of Belize, 2000b).

49. Article 19(2) of the Third Schedule only includes ‘persons employed outside Belize in any Belizean Embassy, High Commission, Diplomatic Mission or Consulate, including their spouses and dependents’ among those able to register as external voters (Government of Belize, 2000a).

50. Refer to Article 45(2)ii of the Representation of the People Act (Government of Guyana, 1974) on the citizen populations that qualify to register to vote from abroad. Part VII, consisting of Articles 50–65, explains how the non-resident voting is to be conducted (Government of Guyana, 1974).

51. The Commonwealth Observer Group that was present during the 2006 General Elections noted in its ensuing report that ‘[t]he non-resident electors’ ballot is restricted to Guyanese diplomat staff and their families’ (Commonwealth Observer Group, 2006, p. 18), also observing that ‘[t]here were three sets of ballot papers: those cast abroad by Guyanese diplomats and their families, those cast by Disciplined Forces personnel on 21 August and those cast on 28 August’ (Commonwealth Observer Group, 2006, p. 45). Qualified students studying abroad are not included.

52. The Guyana Elections Commission website currently only has reports on the 2006 General Elections and not the most recent 2015 General Elections.

53. For instance, even the Attorney General published an opinion on whether residency was a requirement of voting (Electoral Assistance Bureau, 2007, pp. 18–19).

54. See Article 37(1)b and c (Government of Saint Kitts and Nevis, 2009).

55. See, for instance, Astaphan (2017) and the ensuing commentary to his opinion piece.

56. This figure excludes Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. If the latter two States are added, the average population size climbs to 557,259.

57. Of the 12 States, 5 allow for ‘citizenship by investment’: Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Lucia and Saint Kitts & Nevis. A sixth, St. Vincent and the Grenadines is currently considering it, and while Belize no longer formally offers such a programme, the Belizean National Act (Government of Belize, 2000a), states in Article 12 that the Minister responsible for citizenship may at his or her discretion provide ‘economic citizenship’ to an individual who has made a ‘substantial contribution to the economy and/or well-being of Belize.’ Barbados, for its part, is very uneasy with the way in which non-nationals who are not from any Caribbean country, can acquire citizenship via investment and then come and reside in Barbados, which is not part of the citizenship by investment programme (Alleyne, 2017).