The debate on the use of the data from the scrapped house-to-house registration continues. At last week’s statutory meeting of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) on Tuesday (November 12, 2019), the Chairperson, retired Justice Claudette Singh, committed to a decision next week.
According to her, by next week’s meeting, cross-matching would be complete. However, it was revealed later in the week on a television programme “This Week In 60 Minutes” by People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) nominated GECOM Commissioner, Bibi Shadick, that the cross-matching is completed and with GECOM.
A total of 370,000-plus persons were reportedly registered in the scrapped house-to-house registration exercise. These were split into two batches for further checking: 180,000 – these have already been cross-matched and 190,000, which were in the process of being cross-matched and now completed.
As to the reason for posting the list of house-to-house registrants – since the registrants’ list could not be used for persons on it to conduct any transaction with GECOM – to date there has been no clear response from GECOM. Meanwhile, Opposition- nominated Commissioner, Sase Gunraj, explained that proposals are now being made regarding the merger of the House-to-House Registration data with the National Register of Registrants (NRR) Database.
He reiterated his opposition to doing this, noting that while the Secretariat has pointed to the information being posted for public scrutiny, in reality, no clear order was ever made by GECOM to inform the public about what they had to do with the information. He also noted that to his knowledge, no objections were made to the data.
BREAKDOWN OF BATCH ONE
Further, when asked for a breakdown of the first batch of data – the 180,000 that has already been cross-matched – from the house-to-house registration, Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield, admitted that 150,000 are persons who are already registered on the national database. “These are persons who are already on the NRR and still registered in the house-to-house registration,” he said.
He added, that 29,000 are new registrants. However, he could not say how many of these persons are 14-years old. “I do not have that breakdown,” he asked when pressed. The position of the Parliamentary Opposition is that the National Register of Registrants (NRR) Database should not be contaminated by the data from the controversial house-to-house registration.
Opposition Leader , Bharrat Jagdeo, has stated that the PPP/C has been able to take a preliminary look at the publication of the house-to-house registrants’ list and there are glaring errors – incorrect spelling of names, incorrect addresses and more, all of which strengthen the case that is being made against a merger. “We are opposed to the merger of unverified and untested data with the National Register of Registrants,” he said.
The Opposition Leader also made a case of enhanced polling day security, to ensure that only eligible persons are allowed to vote on the 2nd March 2020.
