| Voters in Jamaica's inner-city communities have typically elected the same public officials to office in general elections despite these officials not addressing the needs of their communities over numerous election cycles. Previous research has indicated that violence and fraud accompany the use of political patronage to buy votes and link politicians to gangs that terrorize supporters of the opposition parties. The purpose of the phenomenological study was to explore the decision-making process of voters in 2 innercity Jamaican communities to learn the reasons for the majority of votes continuing to go to the incumbent candidates. Theories of reciprocal determinism and counter-control provided the theoretical framework to address how voters decided to vote repeatedly for the same political officials in spite of the detriment to their communities. Through snowball sampling, 10 interviewees were identified, all of whom had participated in at least 3 consecutive general elections in Jamaica in which the same political representative or political party was returned to office. Data were transcribed; uploaded into analysis software; analyzed to generate themes; and verified through triangulation, memberchecking, and pattern-matching. Findings were that intimidation of voters, favors from politicians and dons, vote-buying, love for political representatives and the party they represent, and dependency on political handouts for survival influenced voter decisionmaking. This study contributes to positive social change by increasing citizens' awareness of their voting behavior, the benefits of voting for public officials who address the needs of their constituencies, and disadvantages of keeping in office those who neglect the communities they were elected to serve. |
