Prince Guduza deserves Cabinet position

Wow! Wow! Wow! Hold your horses!    Don’t put the cart before the horses. Today is thee day. Don’t rush things. First, Jan, aka ‘The Chief’ or ‘The General’, has to pass the acid test today.

Those who’ve been there and done it, say the toughest phase for all newcomers is the primary elections. During this phase, no campaigning is allowed. You are either in or out.

Then once you’ve passed this phase, you can then start confusing and convincing the electorate, by promising them bridges where there are no rivers. Let’s assume he makes it through to Parliament. What role will he play? Is he going to be a back bencher, flow with the crowd, a motion mover, a seconder, a gossiper’ an offender or The Speaker of Parliament? But what happens if he fails the acid test today?

Take nothing away from the former speaker, Prince Guduza; he was perfect and well groomed for the post. I just think he deserves a much senior position in Cabinet this time. He is an asset to the country. Let’s say The Chief becomes the speaker of Parliament. Will he lead MPs to glory? I can’t wait for the results. All I’m hoping for is free and fair elections and not the Zim style. May the best candidate sail through! Am rushing to the polling station too! Please don’t forget to go and vote today; it’s the right thing to do.

RESEARCH OF THE WEEK
  
Topic: Who votes, who doesn’t, why and, what can be done?
Author: Robert M Stein, Rice University Jan Leighley, University of Arizona Christopher Owens, Texas A&M University (A Report to the Federal Commission on Electoral Reform) June 10, 2005.

INTRODUCTION

The central focus of this report reviews several practices used by the states to increase voter participation: relaxed requirements for voter registration; relaxed requirements for absentee voting; in-person early voting and voting by mail.

DISCUSSION

Section One: Who Votes And Why?
a) How does education and political information influence voting? Social networks and media coverage of campaigns and elections is also an important source of information for potential voters, so that more coverage might lead to more turn-out.

b) Is voting habit forming? In their analysis of survey data, Brody and Sniderman (1977) and several other researchers (Nownes 1992, Plutzer 2002, Green and Shachar 2000, Gerber, Green, and Shachar 2003) find that previous voting behaviour predicts current voting behaviour.

c) Are voters more trusting of government? One reason that has been offered for declining voter turnout is a corresponding decline in trust in government.

d) Do political parties and their candidates enhance voter turnout? Individuals are often persuaded to vote because they were asked to vote by a candidate, political party, or a friend (Leighley 2001).

Section Two -Current practices in the fifty states:
a) Most states require voters to register 25-30 days prior to the election. Eighteen states allow for both early voting and absentee voting, while 20 states allow neither. Twenty-five states allow only for absentee voting while twenty-three allow only for early voting. Five states allow early voting, but not absentee voting, while seven states allow for absentee voting but not early voting.

Section Three: Consequences of electoral reform
a) To what extent does relaxed voter registration increase voter turnout and/or change the composition of the electorate? Studies of the effects of the impact of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and other state laws suggest that such reforms increase turnout about two per cent to three per cent (Mitchell and Wlezien 1995; Franklin and Grier 1996; Knack 1995, 2001; Rhine 1995).

b) To what extent does relaxed absentee voting and increased opportunities to ballot in person before Election Day increase voter turnout and/or change the composition of the electorate? Aggregate voter studies of early voting fail to show that turnout significantly increases in states that have adopted in-person early voting (Richardson and Neeley 1996; Stein and Garcia-Monet 1995)

c) What are the consequences of relaxed absentee voting and in-person early voting on the conduct of political campaigns and how do these effects influence what type of voters are mobilised to vote? We have no systematic evidence on the effects of electoral reforms on the conduct of political campaigns. Patterson and Caldiera report that “the state in which one party mounted a substantial effort had a higher rate of absentee voting (1982:785).”

d) Do voters who ballot early (i.e., before Election Day) miss campaign information vital to their choice of candidates and political parties? A study by Stein, Leighley and Owens (2004) found that early voters were attentive and interested in politics and had higher levels of political information than Election Day voters.

e) Is it possible that the administrative obstacle to voting is simply the cost and inconvenience voters experience when they go to the polls on Election Day? It is assumed, but not empirically proven, that voter dissatisfaction with election day balloting is due solely to the cost and inconvenience of waiting to ballot at places that voters have difficulty getting to on equipment that they are unfamiliar with and uncomfortable using.

f) Compulsory voting: Rose (2005) reports that the repeal of compulsory voting laws in the Netherlands and Austria, led to a decrease in turnout by an average of 12.8 percentage points and 7.7 percentage points, respectively. Rose further finds that for European democracies there is 5.3 per cent increase in voter turnout among countries with mandatory voting.

RECOMMENDATIONS

a) All voters, regardless of their residential location in a state and/or election jurisdiction should be able to vote at any of a number of election centres on (or before) Election Day.
b) Voting centres should be located to maximise proximity to the electorate.
c) Voting centres should be accessible to the disabled.
d) Election centres should be staffed with professionally trained non-partisan poll workers.

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