2025 Statelessness & Citizenship Review VI 7(2) VOTING AND GOVERNANCE The primary element of the (dys)functional citizenship I highlight in Haiti is the restriction of democratic voting. While such failures in Haiti are typically avoided in theoretical discussion as weird, incomprehensible or with a veil of ‘Otherness’, I believe more nuanced framing can be achieved through de facto statelessness.116 As Kate Darling contends, ‘[s]tates are the intended mechanism through which individuals access the rights conferred by international human rights law’,117 with voting being one such right conferred under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.118 Yet, the right to vote typically depends on nationality status and is not an entitlement but a privilege limited to citizens. It is understood that the de jure stateless are without the right to vote by virtue of their lack of legal personhood, but I use this same framing to bring those without voting rights and thus without functioning citizenship into our conception of de facto statelessness. Per Howard-Hassman, those lower along the slippery slope of citizenship are those ‘whose de jure citizenship rights are undermined by de facto restrictions and those whose citizenship is in poverty-stricken and/or undemocratic countries that cannot or will not protect them.’119 In Haiti, this notion is clearly reflected –– where one may be a citizen but not have the right to vote, we are forced to accept that even those with legal belonging may fall lower on Howard-Hassman’s slippery slope of citizenship. Having been denied access to free and fair democratic voting and within limited reliable infrastructure, the Haitian populace becomes cut off from hard citizenship rights and thus exposed to conditions of de facto statelessness. The 1987 Constitution of Haiti (‘1987 Constitution’) calls for routine free and fair elections. 120 Though imperfect, much like Arendt’s descriptions of the foundations of the US Constitution, the 1987 Constitution had the aim of ‘prevent[ing] the rise of personal rule’, with a distinct ‘anti-dictatorial charter’.121 The nation first facilitated a democratic transition of power in the 1990s.122 Since voting began in Haiti, election legitimacy and authority have declined due to corruption, administrative failures and rising political tensions.123 Most recently, Haiti held presidential elections in 2015, which were later annulled and attempted again in 2016. The 2016 presidential election faced several delays and fraud allegations before ‘newcomer’ Jovenel Moïse was elected with 55.67% of the vote.124 Like past elections, Moïse’s inauguration does not necessarily indicate a functional voting system, with approximately ten percent of ballots being 116 See ‘Otherness’ as described in Edward Said, Orientalism (Pantheon Books 1978). See also Benedicty (n 78) 20; Trouillot (n 61). 117 Kate Darling, ‘Protection of Stateless Persons in International Asylum and Refugee Law’ (2009) 21(4) International Journal of Refugee Law 742, 743. 118 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, GA Res 217A (III), UN Doc A/810 (10 December 1948) art 21(3). 119 Howard-Hassmann (n 54) 6. 120 La Constitution de la République d’Haïti du Mars 1987 [The March 1987 Constitution of the Republic of Haiti] (Haiti) art 52.1(c); Sue Nelson, ‘Haitian Elections and the Aftermath’ in Krishna Kumar (ed), Postconflict Elections, Democratization, and International Assistance (Lynne Rienner Publishers 1998) 73. 121 Fatton (n 7) 141. 122 Nelson (n 120) 71. 123 Sagás (n 25). 124 Roy and Labrador (n 23); Reuters, ‘Haiti: Violent Protests Erupt over Presidential Election Result’, The Guardian (online, 29 November 2016) <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/29/haiti-presidential-election-result-protestjovenel-moise>, archived at <perma.cc/VCL5-B84T>. 144