Necrocracies and jumbie-tocracies are direct threats to democracies

CAREFUL research on the existence of voter fraud and the dangers it poses to a democracy ought to be of considerable interest, at this time, to all and sundry. Given the embarrassing revelations of the national recount, it should not be difficult for any reasonable mind to conclude that the March 2nd elections were contaminated by a grandiose voter fraud scheme. This writer cannot see any leader with honorable intentions for nation-building and stability acceding to the highest office in a heavily polarised society based on these wanton numerical shenanigans. Having said that, it is worthy to note that ghost voting can produce necrocracies and if it pleases readers, ‘Jumbie-tocracies’ which in Guyanese vernacular translates into a government by the dead or non-existent.

Once votes are cast and are not delivered by the intended voter or a dead voter, it is ghost voting. That sickening occurrence can give rise to Necrocracies and ‘Jumbie-tocracies’ which are direct threats to democracies. It is the ultimate perfection of the antithesis of the will of the people.

VOTER FRAUD IS REAL
An interesting dichotomy is developing on the American electoral scene. In the great exemplar of democracy, the President of the United States and the Republican Party are adamant that voter fraud exists in American politics. The Democratic Party and their defenders have found themselves on the side of the argument which staunchly posits that it is impossible to cheat at elections in America.

In their attempts to prove that their position is based on facts, the President and the Republican Party have proffered compelling evidence of the existence of wanton fraud in the American system. In his research, a former policy analyst in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation, Jason Snead, has documented the case of Andrew Spieles, a former James Madison University student, who pleaded guilty to a charge stemming from his false submission of 18 voter registration forms during the summer of 2016. Further, his work also produced evidence of cases with fake I.Ds, fake birth certificates and fake social security numbers. There are numerous judicially-proven cases of voter fraud in the United States and with all of its great safeguards, their systems are breached. If this corruption of democracy can occur in a country with the gold standard of safeguards against electoral trickery, then it certainly can occur ten-fold in countries such as Guyana, easily facilitated by a bloated list. The national recount has laid this abundantly bare and gives no credence or succor to the argumentation which suggests voter fraud does not exist due to safeguards.
In European countries such as Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia, voter fraud is rampant. This is illustrated in the case of Liviu Dragnea, the Vice Prime Minister of Romania. As the Secretary-General of the Social Democrat Party (PSD) in 2012, he organised a system involving 74 local party executives, activists and heads of local polling stations to push a referendum vote to reach the 60 per cent required. Massive rigging systems and machines exist and they can breach any safeguards, it is difficult to accept the impossibility argument.

NECROCRACY AND ‘JUMBIE-TOCRACY’
Having established the above, it necessary, at this juncture to illustrate the direct connection between voter fraud and the caption above. A necrocracy is an academic term for a government by the choices of the dead and as you may have gathered by now, a ‘Jumbie-tocracy’ represents the same. Together, they form a twin danger that threatens democracy in the following ways; (1) Once it is revealed, it discredits an electoral process and the aggrieved political party and their supporters will wage battle and justifiably threaten stability, (2) if a government emerges based on ghost voting, legitimacy is virtually non-existent and the Locke’s ‘Social Contract’ is egregiously violated, (3)ghost voting can deny the development of a country by removing a government that has the correct policies to lift a nation out of poverty and above all, (4)it kills democracy and facilitates the emergence of a dictatorship.

The will of the people cannot be directed by graveyards.

THE NUMBERS GAME
Well established rigging operations are often accompanied by apologists and intellectual contortionists whose mission is to justify the lack of credible elections that give rise to ‘Jumbie-tocracies’. In doing so, they consistently employ several key arguments; it is impossible to cheat in modern elections, there are no perfect elections, human error is always likely when operating complex events such as elections, the number of corrupt votes will not affect the general process and above all, focus on the numbers and ignore their origins and context. Anyone with an iota of consideration for democracy and the will of the people would not find themselves even remotely close to the strict numbers game. The supreme importance of credible elections are best highlighted by the words of Staffan Lindberg in his book, ‘Democracy and Elections in Africa’; ‘While there are many views on what democracy is-or ought to be-a common denominator among modern democracies is elections…But elections are also and more importantly an institutionalised attempt to actualise the essence of democracy: rule of the people by the people’. By that standard alone, it is ludicrous to suggest sticking to the numbers only. Such postures allow for the facilitating of ‘Jumbie-tocracies’ and the destruction of democracy.

As long as elections exist there will be issues but when you open ballot boxes with only ballots and no documents, you don’t have issues, you have electoral fraud.

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