(Long, long read, but important)
Democracy isn't the marking of the vote, it's the counting of the vote. I'm pretty sure somebody said that. But if nobody did, I just did.
I'm writing this to talk about what I've seen, after being involved in the ballot box audit (it's scope has blossomed from recount to audit for some reason) for the last 9 days, helping to count thousands of votes. I've learnt a lot about the process, even though I've been involved deeper than the average person, and read some legislation, during this time. It's quite an involved process, with lots of checks and balances. But because of the complexity, most of us don't care how it works. We know it works, and we trust our representatives, those that we vote for, will tell us the truth about what is happening. And that there is one vulnerability we give away: trusting that our politicians will be honourable with us, and not be self serving, and tell us the correct thing. So we'll gravitate first to that which "our side" tells us, not believing "the other side". So what do we care about the process, except that we mark our X and then they are counted and a result is announced. Except, Guyana still hasn't reached a result.
Let's go through the process and examine some of the checks and balances, and possible exploitation. The Offical List of Electors, or OLE, is made up of citizens who are old enough to vote. Each polling station will have an OLE with those residents nearby, during the last registration verification process. It is supposed to be updated periodically, comprehensively so during a house to house registration, but mostly, we are required to go in to GECOM and update our particulars ourselves, whenever we change location. Whether you still live there or not, you have to go to the polling station which has your name on its OLE, and vote there. Once your name is on the list, you can vote, whether or not you have an ID card, or if you would have migrated, but flew back into the country to vote on Election Day. However, if you're posted to another jurisdiction because of work (elections work, or disciplined force), and unable to vote at your polling station, you can arrange a Certificate of Employment and vote at the station you're working at. Then there are special circumstances where someone can proxy vote for you (these are applied for within 10 days before e-day).
Which brings the first potential exploitation, someone coming in to vote without ID. You would think that this is an easy loophole to bypass. However, each station is equipped with folios which contain a photo and your details. An Oath of Identity form is used for this case, and everyone at the station compares your photo in the folio, to the face you walk in with. They agree, form is filled up and signed, you vote, and stain your finger and leave. Even if you do have your ID, everyone compares your face to your ID to the details in the folio to confirm who you are. Staff also have Lists of Electors they check off your name as you vote. You are given a ballot upon which the station's 6-digit serial is stamped (you need to ensure this is actually done). Then you vote and stain your fingers. Obviously, once your finger is stained, you're unable to vote again (say you want to impersonate someone, or just cheat the system).
At the end of the day, all the votes are tallied by the GECOM staff, closely observed by party representatives, local and international observers present, and the police officer(s) there. They check each ballot for validity, and then tally up the total votes cast for each party. This tally is placed on a Statement of Poll, which is signed by all present to witness. Each receives a copy of this SoP, and a copy is posted outside the polling station wall, for the public to view the results of the day. A Poll Book is at each station, which keeps a record of Oaths of Identities and Certificates of Employment. The ballot boxes (with SoPs) are then transported to the Returning Officer, who tallies the votes for the district and declares the numbers. The RO reports this to the Chief Election Officer, who does an overall tally and reports on the winner.
Now that the process has been described a bit, we should look at what it would involve to cheat this process, and why some claims we are seeing are frivolous. One claim is that people migrated. But as I stated above, once your name is on the list, you can return to vote, no one can stop you. For someone to vote in your place (if you're migrated, and this would be fraud and a jailable offense), they have to show up at the station, and go through above process. Which means everyone scrutinizing you to see if you look like the photograph in the folio. OK, let's say you're doppelganger enough to pass this scrutiny, you still have to stain your finger at the end, which prevents you from voting again, as yourself (assuming that you didn't vote as yourself already, which then prevents your from voting as someone else now, since your finger is stained). Now, for you to have already voted, and return to beat the scrutiny of everyone in the station, GECOM staff, party representatives, police officers, local and international observers, other people in the line eyeing everybody else's fingers suspiciously, would be an incredible feat to pull off. Unless, EVERYBODY at the station has been compromised, and paid off to allow you to do it. But here's the thing, if EVERYBODY at the station is compromised, then this elaborate thing with impersonation doesn't need to occur. All they need to do at tally time, is put Xs on quite a few ballots, tick off a matching number of names, and add those ballots to the tally. Then everybody goes home. But there's only a couple hundred names on a list at one location, most times less. Not enough to change the result of an election.
This is why I started this read by saying democracy isn't marking your X, but the counting of it. What I have seen, this election, everything up to when the Returning Officer gives an overall tally, has been aboveboard. All of our recounting so far, has matched previous SoPs, with little variance that would not alter the results too much. The issue is not in the voting process, despite the wild and numerous claims we are hearing. Where a number of names are queried for every box "because of migration". For such a fraud to be successful, EVERY person at EVERY polling station has to be compromised, to alter the result of the election. Which means more than 18,000 people, including the party's own representatives, have to be compromised. And have stayed very silent about it over the last 2-3 months, for a fraud of this scale not to have been whispered about. That's not to say it's not possible for a station to commit this fraud. Here I say to the incumbent: if you have evidence of fraud at a station, bring it forth, and let's lock up everyone that was at the station, while we get to the bottom of it.
Yes, there have been mistakes, a ballot placed by accident in another envelope, a ballot rejected incorrectly, but this is a very manual process, and humans make mistakes. I haven't seen anything malicious, myself, and certainly nothing that would alter the result of the election, and the recount is 16% in after Day 9. Where the issue has been, is the declaration of the result. And here, all the loopholes seem to be, including the inability to put a stop to infractions, and punish people for them.
And this is where our system fails us: those at the top, seem to have written the code, so that they can get away with anything. Even now in the recount, we're seeing the exploitation. Up to now, nobody can seem to answer WHY it is that GECOM has not produced the official SoPs and declared the results based on them. Even now, this farce can be made to end, if they are produced. The SoRs are matching the SoPs, mostly. Why are we continuing to play games? Why are we trying to build false narratives to misinform our supporters? This is a waste of valuable time and resources. About the only useful thing it brings about, is a greater understanding of the process, which will be good data when we get around to electoral reform. We need to stop "testing" the system, which causes additional delays, and move on with the process.
