Election watchdog Citizens Action for Free and Fair Elections (CAFFE) has disclosed that the seven reported cases of ‘voter intimidation’ during the local government polls on Monday, based on its investigations, were domestic feuds between family members on different sides of the political divide.

According to Grace Baston, chair of CAFFE, the disputes, which were quelled by members of the security forces who were on hand, did not “materially affect the vote”.

“Most of the intimidation incidents were really domestic disputes between family members outside the polling stations and that caused some disruption,” Baston told the Jamaica Observer on Tuesday. She said during those flare-ups, “ no voter was being discouraged from voting or being handed propaganda”.

“None of that was going on in the incidents [which] were mostly domestic matters. Two people, a husband and a wife, two siblings who support different parties being noisy in the polling station but within minutes they were resolved,” she told the Observer.

CAFFE, in a preliminary report issued at midday after the start of voting on Monday morning, had said approximately 8 per cent of polling stations observed reported some disruption in the voting proceedings and that there were seven reported cases of intimidation of voters but no incident of violent conduct.

Baston, in the meantime, said CAFFE is yet to ascertain what caused the reported disruptions in voting proceedings.

“We have not done those investigations yet, but we will endeavour to get the details for the final report,” Baston said. She said CAFFE will be producing a final report within a month’s time on the local polls.

“As soon as the board meets, we will be discussing any recommendations we might want to make but those have not been formulated as yet. We usually issue the final report within a month, we used to in the past issue a printed, bound report but I think this time it will be an e-document, we should be able to do that in a month’s time,” she said.

Meanwhile, Baston, who on Monday complained that a number of CAFFE’s observers were “prevented from witnessing the final count” of ballots at polling stations, said the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ), which has promised to meet with the organisation on its concerns, is yet to reach out.

“I too heard that the EOJ wanted to initiate that meeting, we have not yet been contacted. I imagine Mr Brown [Director of Elections Glasspole Brown] is very busy ,” she said.

CAFFE on Monday deployed 38 non-partisan roving observers and 339 indoor observers to polling stations covering all 14 parishes in the island. In the statement, issued some minutes after 8:00 pm Monday, the watchdog group said in 11 per cent of “polling stations reported on, observers were not permitted to monitor the final count”.

CAFFE said even while it congratulated EOJ for the effective organisation of the local government elections, it remains concerned that “officials in the electoral system continue to place obstacles in the way of its ability to fully monitor and report on the conduct of the elections”.

“Many of our volunteers were ejected from polling stations throughout the day or placed in positions where they could not effectively observe what was taking place,” CAFFE complained.

It, however, said from what its officials observed, the voting and counting process for the balance of election day proceeded with normality.

“No incidents observed materially affected the results of the elections. The elections were conducted freely and transparently,” the organisation said.

Since being founded in 1997, CAFFE has monitored general elections of 1997, 2002, 2007, 2011, 2016 and 2020; the local government elections of 1998, 2003, 2007, 2012 and 2016; as well as several by-elections and re-runs.