September 25 2019
Although President David Granger has not yet announced an election date, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) is moving full speed ahead with its preparations.
At its statutory meeting yesterday, the commission decided that a 35-day period of Claims and Objections (C&O) will begin on October 1st, 2019.
Commissioners told reporters that the qualifying date for inclusion on the Official List of Electors during this period will be December 31st. Persons who will be 18 or over on or before this date are advised to check the lists in their communities for their names. Persons may also apply to have their address changed or object to the inclusion of a person who may be dead or otherwise disqualified from the same list of electors on which they appear.
Notably C&O will begin before the completion of the encoding of data collected during the House-to-House (HtH) registration process so none of this information will be on the Preliminary List of Electors (PLE). The PLE will be drawn from the same database as the 2011, 2015, 2016 and 2018 voters’ lists.
This is particularly concerning to opposition-nominated Commissioner Sase Gunraj, who told Stabroek News that if the data is not on the PLE it is not clear how it will be publicly scrutinised.
“They have argued for the inclusion of HtH data but this is unverified data which must be publicly scrutinised. It will not be part of claims and objections and as of now there is no information on how and when it will be publicly scrutinised,” he explained.
According to government-nominated Commissioner Charles Corbin, the encoding of the data for the more than 370,000 persons registered during HtH will be conducted “parallel to” C&O.
“Any investigation originating from cross matching will also be conducted parallel to [claims and objections] and a list published after so there will be two lists at some point after the HtH data is properly cross matched within itself,” Corbin explained.
He also noted that commissioners have agreed to accept any offers of help from international organisations, including technical assistance and observers.
“We have agreed to ensure they have adequate Terms of Reference because we have received offers of assistance from several areas and we wish to have no duplication,” he said, while noting that so far the United States and Commonwealth are the first from which help will be accepted.