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Recount starts today

By Kemol King, May 06, 2020 News 0 , Source - Kaieteur News Online - https://www.kaieteurnewsonline...ecount-starts-today/

The National Recount of votes cast in the March General and Regional Elections starts today at 8am. It is expected to close at 7pm, and will continue within that period every day until the recount ends.

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GECOM Chair, Claudette Singh

The staffers of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) will begin with simultaneous counts of the ballots for four regions. Two workstations have been committed to Region One; two have been committed to Region Two; three have been committed to Region Three; and three have been committed to Region Four. The three workstations assigned to Region Four, the largest district, will remain committed to that region. Regions Five to 10 will be counted sequentially after Regions One to Three are completed, as the workstations become available.

Each workstation will be manned by at least four GECOM staffers, with facilitation for one local observer and one foreign observer. From all indications, there will not be enough international observers there to man all 10 stations. The Organisation of American States (OAS) has decided to send a few of its team members already in Guyana, but the Carter Center has not received approval from the National COVID-19 Task Force for their team to travel to Guyana.

Political parties will also be allowed to have one representative at each station. However, eight of the workstations can only safely host 14 persons while two can safely host eight persons. One police officer will form part of each group to ensure the security of the station.

The CARICOM scrutinizing team appointed by the Chair of CARICOM will have the privilege of examining all of the stations. The team consists of three members: Senior Lecturer at University of the West Indies, Cynthia Barrow-Giles; Commissioner at Electoral Commission of Antigua and Barbuda, John Jarvis; and Supervisor of Electoral Commission of St. Vincent and the Grenadines , Sylvester King. They are expected to submit a report to GECOM at the end of the process for consideration by the Commission.

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CARICOM High Level Team: [from left] Senior Lecturer at University of the West Indies, Cynthia Barrow-Giles; Commissioner at Electoral Commission of Antigua and Barbuda, John Jarvis; and Supervisor of Electoral Commission of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Sylvester King

One Commonwealth Observer has been retained by GECOM and will be observing the recount process.

The recount is set to last 25 days, subject to a review in the first week. The review will be informed by the examination of the average time it takes to count one ballot box.

To examine each of the 2,339 ballot boxes, the staffers will reconcile the contents of the box, as well as conduct a numerical count of all valid votes cast in favour of each list of each political contesting party.

After each ballot box is counted, a form called a statement of recount is to be filled out and taken to a tabulation centre. The figures on the statements will be tabulated to determine the votes cast for each contesting political party in a certain district.

Kaieteur News understands that GECOM will allow for ample scrutiny of the statements and the tabulation, including opportunity for the party representatives observing the count to seek clarifications and to object to any apparent disparity.

GECOM’s work plan states that a District matrix will be prepared of the votes cast for each list of candidates.

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Ballot containers being unloaded at the recount venue

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Ballot containers being transported into the Arthur Chung Conference Centre

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One of the armoured police vehicles escorting the containers

At the end of the recount, the Chief Elections Officer, Keith Lowenfield, is expected to compile a cumulative statement on the final count for all 10 districts for submission to the Commission to determine the finality of the count.

GECOM’s order for the recount states that the Commission shall, after deliberating on the report, β€œdetermine whether it should request the Chief Elections Officer to use the data as the basis for the submission of a report to the Commission” for the declaration of the final elections results.

GECOM has stated categorically that the Chief Elections Officer and every other person appointed or authorized to perform any act or functions by virtue of the Order are under the Commission’s general supervisory power.

Ballot Boxes in place
Members of the Tactical Services Unit of the Guyana Police Force, in conjunction with other ranks, were seen early yesterday morning removing the containers of the ballot boxes from the Kingston holding place, to transport them to the venue for the National Recount, the Arthur Chung Conference Centre. The containers were carried on large trucks, escorted by armed police vehicles.

The political party representatives, allowed to keep watch on the ballot boxes at Kingston, are being facilitated at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre.

GECOM tests live stream apparatus
The GECOM Chair only approved a partial live stream of the recount. The counting of the ballots will not be streamed visually. Only the audio will be streamed.

As for the tabulation of the statement of recount (the form replacing statements of poll), that stream will be both visual and audible. GECOM will also publish photos of the ballot boxes as they are taken out, to assure the public that they have not been tampered with.

GECOM’s Public Relations Officer, Yolanda Ward, said yesterday that the public can go to GECOM’s Facebook and YouTube pages, as well as its website, if they want to access the live stream. GECOM was observed testing the audio stream for some of the workstations yesterday on its Facebook page.

Each workstation’s audio stream was accessible yesterday on the Facebook page, and is expected to remain for the duration of the recount.

Tents set up for media operatives
Ward told reporters that the media operatives are β€œimportant stakeholders” in the electoral process. While there was some consideration for tentage to accommodate media operatives in the compound of the Conference Centre, the National COVID-19 Task Force has advised against the long-term use of tents there.

Commissioner Sase Gunraj said that he had advocated for arrangements to be made to accommodate the press. Ward, asked profusely about the accommodations, finally responded last night, indicating that two tents were erected at the entrance to the Centre to accommodate media operatives and that chairs are expected to be set up in the morning for their comfort.

Ward said that the media will be advised when there are briefings and would be allowed access inside the Centre, provided that they have been accredited by GECOM.

Kaieteur News/Radio will be providing on the ball coverage of the recount, including the open and close of the first day of the recount and any necessary breaking events.

FM
@Former Member posted:

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The first ballot box out of the container for Electoral District number one (1) is reportedly full with water.

It is unclear at this time whether the ballots contained within are damaged or not.

Note the PPPC seal is damage on the side ...

Looks as though PPP tried to slide extra ballots in, hmmmm.

Joking aside, why the heck would water get into those boxes? Only in Guyana this shyte happens.

cain

The utterly shameless, tax-payer funded APNU+AFC news rag, Guyana Chronicle in its latest anti-PPP diatribe says that the, PPP misplaced its keys to the containers holding the ballots and as a result held up the start of the recount.

This is utterly false.

The truth is that the locks placed on 3 containers by APNU+AFC, PPP/C and GECOM had to be cut as they had seized up as a result of exposure to the elements of the weather. It was this which caused a slight delay and not as reported by the Chronicle.

This can be verified by Mr Colin April, Major Duncan of GECOM and all the police ranks on duty.

FM

Dear Editor;
As has been feared, based on observations of the layouts and footprints of counting stations at the International Counting Centre, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) appears to be making maximum perverse use of the COVID-19 situation to keep stakeholders and observers remote from satisfactory direct observation and verification of the recount process for ballot boxes of the General and Regional Elections, 2020.
While there is a two (2) trestle head table setup with a camera and screen, with four (4) seating places for staff, the distance to the first row of seats for stakeholders and observers is some fifteen (15) feet. The observed seating matrix is 3 by 4 making for the distance to the last row of seating from the table to be at least forty feet!
The presence of the screen to project the packages, ballots and other materiel does not really help because the fixed camera capture area is relatively small to ascertain the true condition of packages, ballots and the ultimate storage or fate of all items received and processed. One would have to continuously alter views between the screen and the table to keep track of disparate actions by the handlers at the distances on offer to avoid any issue of claims of switching or insertions. And then a resort would have to be made to going up to the table to make certain that what was indeed said or displayed, from afar, is indeed true leading to delays in the activity.
GECOM utilizing the misguided, or worse malicious, guidance from the Ministry of Public Health is bent on enforcing a six (6) foot social distance requirement in a seating arrangement for stakeholders and observers, who will wear even N95 masks while its own staff at the head table will be operating within three (3) feet of each other while wearing masks which is consistent with the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for a low-risk environment! How does one justify, in the circumstances the large separation distance between the counting table on one side and the stakeholders and observers on the other side?
An urgent review, of the operational setting and methodology in place, is most certainly required to allay concerns and to deliver a recount process which meets high levels of transparency in all aspects.
This last is, also, required to have a now truculent and surly GECOM restore to the Guyanese electorate a process which they own through the political parties which represent them.
Yours Sincerely

Robeson Benn
GECOM Commissioner

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FM
Last edited by Django

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