Talk:2012 Turks and Caicos Islands general election

Incorrect statement

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However, he had voluntary applied for a United States passport in July 2012 after that oath. On 7 February 2013, the Supreme Court ruled the election void.[11][12]

This statement is incorrect:

Corrections:

However, he had voluntary applied for a United States passport in June 2010; and a TCI passport in October 2012. (Note, oath was October 25, 2012). On 7 February 2013, the Supreme Court ruled the election void.[11][12] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.103.28.174 (talk) 00:39, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Which article are you referring to?--ukexpat (talk) 00:42, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

After doing a Google search, it appears that they're referring to Turks and Caicos Islands general election, 2012. Dismas|^(talk) 01:19, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Indeed the original statement had a minor error of fact (July 2012 was a date involving the use of his US passport rather than his application for it), but the IP's version is far worse: extremely selective presentation of facts, and the material about his TCI passport is both irrelevant and unsupported by the source. The oath by which Smith claims to have renounced citizenship was not the October 2012 election candidate oath, but an earlier oath under which he took up employment in the TCI government as census supervisor (the TCI census was held in early 2012). As stated in source 11:

He added: “I can tell you for a fact that I’m no longer an American citizen. The record would show that I even went as far as taking an oath before Governor Ric Todd where I pledged me allegiance to the Queen and by extension the Turks and Caicos Islands when I was chosen to be a supervisor of the census, so really I don’t know what all this fuss is about.”

In reality, such an oath has no effect under US law, unless he went to the US consulate afterwards, affirmed that he made the oath with the intention of giving up US citizenship, and turned in his passport. This is basically what was testified in TCI court by a US immigration lawyer, as described in source 12:

Although Smith contended in his evidence that he was eligible for election and that he had renounced his US citizenship by default by taking a subsequent oath of allegiance to the Queen, expert testimony by a US immigration attorney indicated that he acknowledged his allegiance to the United States when he travelled on his US passport in July 2012, subsequent to the taking of that oath.

So I changed the disputed passage to read:

However, he had used his United States passport to travel to the United States in July 2012 after that oath.

Regards, quant18 (talk) 05:35, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Suffrage

Based on the results its pretty clear that there is different suffrage to the constituency seats and the at-large seats. 6,393 voted for the constituency and more than 30,000 voted for the at-large seats. This fits a distinction between belongers (roughly a quarter of the population) and residents. So logically only belongers are allowed to vote for the constituency seats, while all permanent residents can vote for the at-large seats. I hope someone can find a source for this.--Batmacumba (talk) 13:34, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

@Batmacumba: Actually it's because people can cast multiple votes in the at-large seats (up to the number of seats available – i.e. five – this is also represented by the number of votes cast being around five times the number of voters participating). I've updated the electoral system section. Number 57 13:41, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for clarifying that. It seemed to correspond neatly with the belonger/resident distribution (if one assumed at slightly lower vote in constituency seats due to the result being a done deal in some constituencies).--Batmacumba (talk) 13:51, 16 December 2016 (UTC)