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The drive from Salaxley to the next station is long, and it is now hot. The driver has asked around and identified what is supposed to be the next closest station. As we leave the town behind and head off into the bush, I am perplexed at how the driver can possibly know where we are going. Every direction appears as more of the same, and as the drive bumps along and the sun rises higher in the sky, all I can think is that my half-empty water bottle will not last very long if the vehicle breaks down. My well-watered self would not last one afternoon in this bone-dry environment. I share this sentiment with Nada, which she finds quite funny: we agree that she would hands down out-survive me because of her Somali blood.
Panoramic views fly by our windows, but the drive seems never-ending. It is only 8:30 am, but we’ve been up since 3:30 and on the road since 4 am. This will be a long day. Fortunately, Nada and I find much to talk and laugh about. We are, at the outset, very different people, raised in utterly different places, accustomed to divergent cultural practices, and holding dear wildly different ideas about faith. But what we quickly discover is that none of these impede our ability to connect, and indeed, we do. Talking passes the time and makes light of the fact that we’re completely disconnected from the rest of the world, hours from anything familiar.
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Although the polling stations become more rural, farther and farther apart, we notice the same patterns repeatedly. One of the first things we realize is that the supposedly ‘indelible’ ink, the primary bulwark against multiple voting, is hardly indelible at all. In some cases, the ink is simply insufficiently applied. In the afternoon, it is clear that many people, particularly men, are reluctant to have their fingers inked. Some men attempt to wriggle away from a ‘full dip,’ in which case the scrutineer must be extra-assertive in grabbing the voter’s wrist and jamming the finger into the ink container. But when the scrutineer is a woman, which was often the case, this task is more difficult.
It was common to watch voters pull a rag from their pocket immediately after having their fingers inked in order to quickly wipe the ink away before it set. Outside the stations, another phenomenon is observed: typically on the side or behind the polling station, an informal ‘de-inking’ station is set up where voters can use bleach or other substances to try and remove the ink, or otherwise apply some kind of oil prior to voting in order to prevent the ink from sticking. Unfortunately, the voting stations we visited had no way to deal with this ambitious behavior, and therefore a great deal of responsibility fell on the scrutineers to both wipe their fingers before applying ink and to be vigorous in its application. Where scrutineers were typically the least trained members of the polling station staff, this process was not always effective.
Multiple voting was further facilitated by the use of trucks – probably organized by particular party organizations – to transport voters between polling stations. This activity was of course banned, with all roads inside Somaliland officially closed to vehicles without special National Election Commission plates. Because most polling stations in rural areas are separated by great distance, the intent of this rule is perfectly clear and if enforced would probably have a significant impact on reducing instances of multiple voting. However, the police and security forces lacked any real capacity to enforce this rule, particularly in rural areas. After standing around for fifteen minutes in a practically deserted polling station in the afternoon, we hear a commotion outside: looking out the window, I see a cargo truck packed with young men pulling into the station. As the truck comes to a dust-enshrouded halt, these newly materialized voters jump to the ground and queue up at the station, which has now changed from a lazy rural outpost to a frenzied mess of activity. Nada and I observe person after person turned away after having their fingers inspected. This is a good sign considering that unquestionably every one of these voters has already cast a ballot somewhere else. Nevertheless, at least half are allowed to vote. In a unique cultural twist, many suspect voters are asked to swear to god that they have not already voted – ‘wallah.’ In the Somali context, where the nation is effectively 100% Muslim, this is a surprisingly effective tactic! Caught red-handed but unwilling to sacrifice their faith, disdained voters refuse to say the words and walk out defeated.
From my impression of the November 2012 elections, multiple voting did not necessarily violate the integrity of the process in a way that would call into question the democratic nature of the outcome. Although the tenet of one-person-one-vote seems a basic principle of the electoral process, the most important observation we made is that the phenomenon of multiple voting appeared to have a completely different meaning and significance in the Somaliland context. This is apparent in two ways: first, from the perspective of voters, who seemed not to be fully aware that voting more than once was in any way a bad thing. At one point in the days following the election, I was engaged in a brief conversation with a Somali man who, after learning my nationality, asked me if I voted for Barack Obama (who is naturally quite popular across Africa). After I answered in the affirmative, the man asked with total seriousness, “how many times?” When I told him “just once,” he enthusiastically proclaimed that he had been able to vote five times for his candidate of choice! In fact, I had similar exchanges with a number of voters after asking them if they had voted, and all proudly and unabashedly indicated the number of times they had voted – usually more than once. In this sense, multiple voting can be viewed practically as an outgrowth of enthusiasm for the democratic process: this is indeed a positive takeaway from a phenomenon that might otherwise be viewed as fundamentally undemocratic.
The second important consideration is that multiple voting, widespread as it was, did not appear – at least in any obvious way – to be dominated by one or a few parties. Rather, it seemed to be widely distributed, ‘cheating’ indeed but, as one other international observer put it, ‘equal opportunity cheating.’ So although in these elections there were no doubt more votes cast than individuals who voted, it still seems highly likely that the outcome of the election represents the general will of the people, which is ultimately the most important goal of any democratic process. (Although it should be noted that the results are currently disputed by representatives of several parties that did not meet the threshold for becoming official parties; these groups claim that multiple voting was in fact orchestrated by the party currently in power [Kulmiye]. No international observers that I spoke to made this assertion, nor did any make note of one-party dominated multiple voting.) Moreover, we did not witness more blatant forms of cheating such as ballot stuffing (although one IEO did report a ballot box being seized by the police). In this sense, the primary testament to Somaliland’s democracy is that the population remains enthusiastic about the process. Although the process did break down in several ways – the not-so-indelible ink being the most important – the breakdown happened within the confines of a democratic system and, significantly, did not challenge this system in any fundamental way. While the process was imperfect, the outcome nevertheless represents further consolidation of a democratic norm.
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