Dear Editor,

Do you follow American presidential elections? Yes? If you do, you would know that just recently (on November 8, 2016) Americans voted in their president-elect, Donald J. Trump. Even if you don't follow American presidential elections, America has such a pervasive influence worldwide that you would have to be living in an area totally separated from mainstream society in any country (or living under a rock) to not know that Trump was successful in securing the presidency.

But, what I find intriguing about the American system of electing a president is that the citizens do not vote for their chosen candidate directly. Americans vote for 538 different electors who, in turn, cast their vote for a particular candidate during the following month. Each state is assigned the amount of different electors which should be almost representative of the amount of people who are resident in that state. That is the way it should be (in theory), but it does not always work out that way.

For instance, in this last election I discovered that a particular state (Wyoming) with just over 580,000 residents was assigned three electors, which was the same number of electors assigned to another state (Delaware) with just over 920,000 residents. And these inequitable assignments go on all over the U.S. Do you think that that is fair? With a system like that it's no wonder that the American election results turned out the way that they did.

What am I talking about? Well, it is now well known throughout America (and thus throughout the world) that the Democratic nominee for president, Hillary Clinton, won the overall popular vote in that election. However, Trump was successful in garnering the required electoral votes to win the contest. More people in America voted for Clinton, but more electors will vote for Trump in December. And so, he will become president.

Do you think that The Bahamas is any different with regards to this "popular vote" phenomenon? Well, as it turns out, I am reticent to inform you that the same thing could happen here. As a matter of fact, the same course of events did happen here in 1962 when the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) won the popular vote, but the United Bahamian Party (UBP) won the most seats in the House of Assembly. How could that happen? It could happen because of the reprehensible practice of gerrymandering by the party in power.

An (unnamed) online dictionary describes gerrymandering as "the dividing of a state, county, etc., into election districts so as to give one political party a majority in many districts while concentrating the voting strength of the other party into as few districts as possible". To use my own definition, gerrymandering, is a method of dividing the different constituencies so as to benefit the party practicing the process. The UBP did it in 1962 and was successful in winning the mandate to govern The Bahamas.

And so, to avoid an election fiasco of mammoth proportions repeating itself in 2017 for The Bahamas, and also to avoid what happened in the U.S. earlier this month (and even the same thing in 2000) from happening here, all citizens of The Bahamas should keep a close watch on the Boundaries Commission (scheduled to meet soon), whose members are charged with the function of dividing the constituencies equally to dispel any semblance of gerrymandering during our next general election, so it does its job satisfactorily.

- Marvin G. Lightbourn

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