June 14 2020
Summary Statement of Recount Report:
The Guyana Elections Commission’s (GECOM) national recount exercise commenced on May 6, 2020, after the Order appeared in a special edition of the Official Gazette on May 4, at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre (ACCC), where the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce & Industry (GCCI), an accredited Local Observer, collaborated with other accredited Local Observers to observe the exercise. This was done in light of COVID-19 and the restrictions placed on the number of local observers who could be in a station at once.
The GCCI, through this collaborative effort, was able to have information from 100% of the workstations from the beginning to the end of the recount exercise. Altogether, the GCCI’s Observation team was diverse, representing different ethnic groups and genders. Observers, operated within the parameters of the Terms of Reference for Observers and the Gazetted Order for the Recount. In so doing, Observers looked for compliance with the established legal provisions and GECOM’s policy decisions. The Observers also looked for professionalism, efficiency, courtesy, alacrity, inclusivity, accountability, transparency and credibility throughout the entire recount. The Observers looked for political intrusion and interference and administrative humbug. Observers also looked at the security arrangements and the role of the police. The Observers also looked at the frequency and manner in which pertinent information was provided to the media by GECOM.
As per the Order, generally a pattern was established, where a ballot box would be taken from the container it was stored in, escorted by Party Agents and Police, enter the workstation and be handed over to GECOM’s Supervisory Staff, opened in front of Party Counting Agents and Observers, then the serial number of the locks would be read off and recorded. Each folder would then be opened and the contents examined. In the first 3 weeks all the folders were opened, after the first 3 weeks a decision was taken to speed up the process by opening only the folders that contained the Counterfoils, Tendered Ballots, Folios, Poll Books and Ballots (including Spoiled, Rejected and Valid Cast for a Party, with each Party having its own Envelope as per GECOM Standard Operating Procedures.
After the contents were examined, the Counting Clerks began to Count each ballot, audibly, so that the live audio broadcast audience could hear and follow along. Once the Count was completed, a Statement of Recount was prepared, along with a Ballot Box Checklist, and an Observation Report, all of which the Party Counting Agents were asked, but not required, to sign. Copies of this Statement of Recount were prepared for GECOM Secretariat, GECOM’s Tabulation Personnel, the CARICOM Observers and the Political Parties. GECOM’s Tabulation Personnel then carried out a Tabulation exercise every afternoon from 5 – 6:30pm to produce a Total of Valid Votes Cast for Each Region for the Recount.There are a few anomalies that GCCI’s Observers observed out of the recount process itself:
● Checking of unnecessary information: It became a matter of solicitude as there was a common observation by all members of the observer team, that Counting Agents of the APNU/AFC queried quite a number of serial numbers that they wished to be checked by the Supervisor of each workstation. The supervisor in return, indicated whether those serial numbers were ticked on the OLE or not. It must be noted that the Local Observers asked in several instances whether they could view the Marked Lists to confirm the ticks but that was denied. This was sometimes time-consuming and very frustrating, particularly in cases, where some of the APNU/AFC Counting Agents queried serial numbers not on the OLE for that station. During this exercise, the Counting Agents of the APNU/AFC made innumerable allegations that the serial numbers they called represented people they thought were out of the jurisdiction on E-day, or were deceased individuals. These objections were recorded on the Observations Report as was agreed in the Basket of Issues. Similarly, objections to APNU/AFC’s claims by other Parties were also recorded in the Observation Reports.
● Unmatched/Missing Documents: In each ballot box, there were a number of envelopes ranging from Forms No. 1-19 with unique descriptions of those envelopes. In rare cases, the number of used counterfoils did not correspond with the marked lists and in other cases, there were some envelopes not accounted for at the time. There were also cases, where ballots of another party were found amongst the ballots of another. In these cases, the ballots were retrieved and recorded for as belonging to the party it was meant to be allocated to. These issues were addressed by the Co-coordinators of the Recount and a way to move forward was established for each case. The most significant incidents were the 47 ballot boxes from the East Coast of Demerara in District 4 that did not have the statutory documents. The GCCI notes that this district is under the control of Returning Office Clairmont Mingo who was a defendant in legal action in the High Court, and subject to Contempt of Court Proceedings due to his earlier District 4 declaration.
● There were a number of cases where the validity of a number of votes were questioned. This incertitude was as a result of supposedly stained ballots, partial marks with complete full marks whereby the full mark was placed at a party and using pen instead of a pencil to mark one’s vote. This issue was inscribed in the basket of issues, which indicated that a vote is to be considered valid once the intent of the voter was clear. The only exception to this rule was one where a tick or an X or any other indicators were placed for more than one of the political parties. This indicated that the voter’s intention was unclear. The Private sector notes that there were many cases where once rejected votes were now considered valid after the Basket of Issues were deliberated upon and approve
