PROF HAMID GHANY

Res­i­dent Po­lit­i­cal Sci­en­tist

The Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) vot­er re­dis­tri­b­u­tion could shift the bal­ance of sup­port be­tween po­lit­i­cal par­ties in the April 28 gen­er­al elec­tion, po­ten­tial­ly al­ter­ing the out­come in cer­tain con­stituen­cies.

In a ra­zor-tight elec­tion race, the PNM is de­fend­ing a 22-19 ma­jor­i­ty and the UNC is seek­ing to pick up at least two seats in or­der to ef­fect a shift in pow­er.

In its March 2024 re­port, the EBC un­veiled po­ten­tial­ly sig­nif­i­cant ad­just­ments to elec­toral bound­aries and con­stituen­cy ti­tles across T&T. Ap­proved by Par­lia­ment on De­cem­ber 9, these re­vi­sions could make cer­tain seats even more com­pet­i­tive.

Us­ing ad­vanced Ge­o­graph­ic In­for­ma­tion Sys­tems (GIS), the EBC has re­cal­i­brat­ed polling di­vi­sions, lead­ing to key shifts in ar­eas such as Clax­ton Bay (for­mer­ly Pointe-a-Pierre), La Hor­quet­ta-Tal­paro, San Fer­nan­do West, and To­co-San­gre Grande among oth­ers.

These bound­ary ad­just­ments could im­pact the four sup­pos­ed­ly mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies by al­ter­ing the com­par­i­son of vic­to­ry mar­gins from the last elec­tion.

The im­pli­ca­tions for vot­er turnout and par­ty dy­nam­ics could be pro­found, and on elec­tion day, the ground game will ul­ti­mate­ly de­ter­mine the out­come.

These ad­just­ments could be the de­cid­ing fac­tor be­tween vic­to­ry and de­feat.

The de­tails of the changes in these four con­stituen­cies de­serve clos­er scruti­ny to bridge the gap be­tween dry sta­tis­ti­cal analy­sis—based on maps, charts, and da­ta—and the re­al­i­ty of an elec­tion night out­come, filled with eu­pho­ria for the vic­tors and sad­ness for the van­quished.

Clax­ton Bay (for­mer­ly Pointe-a-Pierre): UNC gains an edge

With the new bound­ary changes, the mar­gin by which the UNC could win in Clax­ton Bay could po­ten­tial­ly in­crease, as the trans­fer of Polling Di­vi­sion (PD) 3206 brings in ad­di­tion­al UNC-lean­ing votes from Tabaquite, there­by boost­ing their over­all mar­gin.

The changes ap­pear to favour the UNC by in­creas­ing their vote mar­gin in the new Clax­ton Bay con­stituen­cy which they cur­rent­ly hold.

La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro: Mi­nor PNM bump

The trans­fer of PD 2390 from Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la to La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro re­sults in a mi­nor ad­just­ment that slight­ly in­creas­es the PNM’s vote mar­gin over the UNC in Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la (us­ing 2020 re­sults) which is cur­rent­ly held by the PNM.

San Fer­nan­do West: UNC chips away at PNM lead

The re­dis­tri­b­u­tion of polling di­vi­sions slight­ly re­duces the PNM’s mar­gin of vic­to­ry in San Fer­nan­do West, as the UNC has gained some votes due to the trans­fer of PDs 4005 and 4006. How­ev­er, the PNM still main­tains a re­duced lead in this con­stituen­cy which they cur­rent­ly hold.

To­co/San­gre Grande: PNM mar­gin shrinks

The ad­just­ment re­duces the mar­gin of vic­to­ry for the PNM in To­co/San­gre Grande by 415 votes (us­ing 2020 re­sults), as these votes will now be count­ed in the Ari­ma con­stituen­cy.

Even with this change, the PNM still main­tains a sig­nif­i­cant lead over the UNC, though the mar­gin is slight­ly re­duced in this seat which the PNM cur­rent­ly hold.

Changes to elec­toral bound­aries

In out­lin­ing the ra­tio­nale for mak­ing changes to elec­toral bound­aries in its March 2024 re­port, the EBC said: “1. METHOD­OL­O­GY

Us­ing Ge­o­graph­ic In­for­ma­tion Sys­tems (GIS), suit­able ad­just­ments to con­stituen­cies were iden­ti­fied by analysing the dis­tri­b­u­tion of the polling di­vi­sion elec­torate and the sta­tis­ti­cal im­pact of PD trans­fers be­tween con­stituen­cies. Each po­ten­tial trans­fer was fur­ther in­ves­ti­gat­ed to­wards en­sur­ing that all con­stituen­cies of each is­land con­formed with the Sec­ond Sched­ule while avoid­ing un­nec­es­sary frag­men­ta­tion of com­mu­ni­ties and lim­it­ing the use of imag­i­nary lines in dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed ar­eas.” (p xi­ii).

Changes wor­thy of mon­i­tor­ing close­ly are:

Clax­ton Bay (for­mer­ly Pointe-a-Pierre)

“Polling Di­vi­sion 3206 with an elec­torate of 936 was trans­ferred to this con­stituen­cy from Tabaquite, there­by in­creas­ing the elec­torate of Pointe-a-Pierre to 26,030 and in­creas­ing the num­ber of polling di­vi­sions to 32.

Col­lat­er­al­ly, with ad­just­ments made un­der ‘A’, the elec­torate of Tabaquite was re­duced to 28,653, which is with­in the per­mis­si­ble lim­its. Cor­re­spond­ing­ly, the num­ber of polling di­vi­sions in Tabaquite was re­duced by one (1) to 38. This ad­just­ment, made on the north­east­ern ex­tent of the con­stituen­cy, was best suit­ed based on the sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of elec­tors be­long­ing to this polling di­vi­sion re­sid­ing on the west­ern side of the Uri­ah But­ler High­way.” (p xv).

PD 3206 was housed at the Spring­vale Hin­du Pri­ma­ry School, Mt Pleas­ant Road, Spring­vale. The re­sult in the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion was PNM-123 and UNC-424, which was a net gain for the UNC of 301, which will now be lo­cat­ed in Clax­ton Bay. The mar­gin of the UNC over the PNM in 2020 was a dif­fer­ence of 1,512. With this change, the sta­tis­ti­cal gap (us­ing 2020 re­sults) be­tween the UNC and the PNM will be in­creased to 1,813.

La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro

“Polling Di­vi­sion 2390 in Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la with an elec­torate of 407 was trans­ferred to La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, there­by re­duc­ing the elec­torate of Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la to 30,550 and the num­ber of polling di­vi­sions to 53.

Col­lat­er­al­ly, the elec­torate of La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro was in­creased to 28,526, which is with­in the per­mis­si­ble lim­its. Cor­re­spond­ing­ly, the num­ber of polling di­vi­sions in La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro was in­creased by one to 36. This ad­just­ment, made on the south-west­ern ex­tent of the con­stituen­cy, re­duced the de­gree of com­mu­ni­ty frag­men­ta­tion be­tween the con­stituen­cies of Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la and La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro while al­so min­imis­ing the im­pact of the ad­just­ment to con­form to the rules set out in the Sec­ond Sched­ule.” (p xvi)

PD 2390 was housed at the Tamana RC Pri­ma­ry School, Tamana Sec­tion II Road, Four Roads, Tamana. The re­sult in the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion was PNM-116 and UNC-98, which was a net gain for the PNM of 18 votes, there­by mak­ing it a mar­gin­al PD. The mar­gin of the PNM over the UNC was 1,921. With this change, the sta­tis­ti­cal gap be­tween the PNM and the UNC will be 1,939.

San Fer­nan­do West

“Polling Di­vi­sions 4005 and 4006 with an elec­torate of 453 and 473, re­spec­tive­ly, were trans­ferred to this con­stituen­cy from San Fer­nan­do East, there­by in­creas­ing the elec­torate of San Fer­nan­do West to 25,374 and in­creas­ing the num­ber of polling di­vi­sions to 61.

Col­lat­er­al­ly, the elec­torate of San Fer­nan­do East was re­duced to 25,646, which is with­in the per­mis­si­ble lim­its. Cor­re­spond­ing­ly, the num­ber of polling di­vi­sions in San Fer­nan­do East was re­duced by two to 43. This ad­just­ment, made on the north­east­ern ex­tent of the con­stituen­cy, bol­stered the de­scrip­tion of the con­stituen­cy’s bound­ary and fur­ther min­imised com­mu­ni­ty frag­men­ta­tion by align­ing the bound­ary with the nat­ur­al bound­ary of the Vista­bel­la Riv­er.” (p xxi).

PDs 4005 and 4006 were housed at the Vista­bel­la Re­gion­al Com­plex, Ninth Street, Off Man­jack Street, Vista­bel­la. The re­sult in the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion in PD 4005 was PNM-135 and UNC-115. In PD 4006, the re­sult was PNM-80 and UNC-187. There was a net gain for the UNC of 87 votes com­bined. The mar­gin of the PNM over the UNC was 1,705. With this change, the sta­tis­ti­cal gap be­tween the PNM and the UNC will be re­duced to 1,618 (us­ing 2020 re­sults).

To­co/San­gre Grande

“Polling Di­vi­sion 2100 in To­co/San­gre Grande with an elec­torate of 2,000 was trans­ferred to Ari­ma, there­by re­duc­ing the elec­torate of To­co/San­gre Grande to 30,498 and the num­ber of polling di­vi­sions to 48. Col­lat­er­al­ly, the elec­torate of Ari­ma was in­creased to 28,577, which is with­in the per­mis­si­ble lim­its.

Cor­re­spond­ing­ly, the num­ber of polling di­vi­sions in Ari­ma was in­creased by one to 41. This ad­just­ment, made on the west­ern ex­tent of the con­stituen­cy, fur­ther ex­tend­ed the use of the East­ern Main Road and Va­len­cia Road as eas­i­ly dis­cernible and promi­nent nat­ur­al bound­aries. Al­though this bound­ary does un­avoid­ably in­cor­po­rate the use of imag­i­nary lines in its de­scrip­tion, these are present in un­pop­u­lat­ed re­gions of the con­stituen­cy.” (p xxii).

PD 2100 was housed at the Va­len­cia RC/Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School, Nos 14-18 Flam­boy­ant Cres­cent, Va­len­cia. The re­sult in the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion was PNM-741 and UNC-326. There was a net gain of 415 in favour of the PNM, which has now been trans­ferred to the Ari­ma con­stituen­cy. The mar­gin of the PNM over the UNC was 3,391. With this change, the sta­tis­ti­cal gap be­tween the PNM and the UNC will be 2,976.