Elections in Bahamas

The Bahamas holds general elections for the House of Assembly, as well as bye-elections when an individual seat becomes vacant. Parliament also includes the Senate, whose members are appointed rather than directly elected. The Governor-General dissolves Parliament, issues the writs for an election and appoints the Prime Minister after the vote. The Prime Minister must be a member of the House of Assembly who has, or is most likely to have, the support of a majority of its members. The House of Assembly currently has 41 constituencies: 25 in New Providence, 5 in Grand Bahama and 11 across the other Family Islands. Each constituency elects one Member of Parliament. The first-past-the-post system gives the seat to the candidate with the highest number of regular votes. If only one candidate is nominated, that candidate is elected without a contested poll. The Constituencies Commission reviews boundaries and seats at least every five years, while Parliament can normally continue for a maximum of five years before a new election is required. A voter must be a Bahamian citizen, be at least 18 years old, have no legal incapacity and meet the residence rules. Registration generally requires at least three continuous months of ordinary residence in the constituency. On polling day, the voter must be registered and ordinarily resident in that constituency, or must have been ordinarily resident there at some point during the preceding year. A person serving a prison sentence or under a death sentence cannot vote. The Parliamentary Registration Department maintains the register, and a Revising Officer handles objections, revisions and appeals. Voters can register through the Parliamentary Registration Department or by visiting a Revising Officer. A Bahamian passport is the main identity document; other accepted combinations can include a voter card with a birth certificate, a citizenship or naturalisation certificate, or government identification and proof connected to the applicant's mother. A valid purple voter's card does not require fresh registration. The 2026 registration cutoff was 8 April, and the applicable notice did not state a registration fee. The 2025 regulations provide for digitised fingerprints, a machine-readable facial image and a digital signature for voter identification. A passport-office comparison requires written consent, and the biometric information is subject to purpose limitation and data-protection rules. Electronic poll books are provided for in the legal framework but were not used in the 2026 election. Registration, constituency assignment and access to current register information can therefore still depend heavily on the Parliamentary Registration Department. A general election proceeds from public notice and writs to nomination, publication of the candidate list, completion of the register and assignment to polling divisions. In 2026 Parliament was dissolved on 8 April, writs were issued on 9 April and polling took place on 12 May. Advance polling took place on 30 April, and overseas polling was available. Special voting arrangements covered, among others, hospital and care-home patients, people affected by illness, infirmity, pregnancy or recent childbirth, people expected to be abroad, candidates and their spouses, election workers, election officials and Parliamentary Registration Department staff. In practice, the 2026 arrangements also reached elderly voters and people with disabilities, with about 26,000 advance voters, more than 10% of the electorate. Polling normally runs from 08:00 to 18:00. An interruption extends the poll until voters have had at least ten effective hours, and people still waiting at closing time may continue to vote. Voting is by secret paper ballot: the voter marks a choice with an indelible pencil. Candidates and their election agents may attend, as may accredited observers, but recording devices are prohibited. A registered employee receives two additional hours of absence besides the meal break, without a deduction in pay, unless work starts at or after 10:00 or ends at or before 16:00. Voting itself has no direct charge for voters. Candidates pay a B$400 deposit, which can be returned after the result subject to statutory conditions, including withdrawal from the fifth day or later and receiving no more than one-sixth of the regular votes in the relevant circumstances. The Presiding Officer counts ballots at the polling station immediately after voting, in the presence of agents and observers. The signed Q form is the primary record of the count. In 2026 results were transmitted by telephone to the Returning Officer and the Parliamentary Registration Department rather than through a secured digital results platform. The law provides for recounts, and the Organization of American States observed recounts in 15 constituencies in 2026. The Parliamentary Registration Department and media publish election information, but the transmission process and limited digital self-service create practical verification challenges, especially across the islands. An election petition normally goes to the Election Court within 21 days of the result. Petitions concerning corrupt or illegal practice generally have a 28-day period, subject to further statutory limits. The Election Court decides the validity of the election, and an appeal on a question of law may proceed to the Court of Appeal. The Supreme Court handles other constitutional and procedural matters. After the 12 May 2026 election, the Progressive Liberal Party won 33 of the 41 seats and the Free National Movement won 8. Philip Davis and the Progressive Liberal Party continued in government, and the Cabinet was appointed on 18 May 2026. Candidates must be Bahamian citizens aged at least 21 and ordinarily resident in The Bahamas for at least one year before nomination. They generally need five registered subscribers, a qualification declaration, an assets-and-income statement, a liabilities statement and the B$400 deposit. Certain judicial, public-service, armed-forces, Governor-General's staff and Ministry of Tourism positions exclude a person from candidacy. The 2026 election was orderly at observed locations, but reported structural risks included register errors, limited digital inspection, dependence on executive resources, late boundary changes from 39 to 41 constituencies, a limited biometric rollout, unauthenticated telephone result transmission, no comprehensive pre-election legal remedies, no state party financing and no spending limits.