May 30 2020
With one day left in the original timeline for the recount of votes from the March 2nd general elections, GECOM yesterday extended the deadline to June 13 and by majority decision agreed for a maximum of three days after the receipt of a final report from the Chief Election Officer (CEO) for the declaration of a result.
This could put the end date for the protracted and controversy-laced 2020 General and Regional Elections (GRE) at June 16.
An addendum published yesterday to the National Recount Order alters four of the 14 Clauses which make up the Order, beginning with Clause 2, which sets the timeline at 25 days.
Specifically, the new clause provides that the recount “shall conclude on or before Saturday the 13th day of June 2020.”
The same date has been added to Clause 12 so that Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield has until June 13th to tabulate matrices for the recount of the 10 Electoral Districts and submit same in a report, together with a summary of the observation reports for each District, to the Commission.
The Commission will then deliberate on this report and then decide whether it should ask Lowenfield to use this data for the presentation of a final report under section 96 of the Representation of the People Act Cap 1:03.
By a majority vote, GECOM has then set itself a maximum of three days after the receipt of the final report for a declaration of the result.
It is not clear how long GECOM might deliberate on the first report neither is there any timeline set for the CEO to deliver his final report. These ambiguities in the order can introduce further delays.
Specifically according to the addendum, “the Commission shall, no later than three days after receiving the (final) report, make the declaration of the results of the final credible count of the elections held on the 2nd day of March 2020.”
While this “timeframe of definition” has been welcomed by the main opposition, Executive member of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Anil Nandlall has called on Chairperson Justice (ret’d) Claudette Singh to publicly state her position on an “investigation” into allegations raised by the APNU+AFC coalition.
“It has become incumbent for the Chairperson to clarify these issues because we are already on public record speaking about the jurisdiction of the Commission and what it can and can’t do and speaking on the nature of a recount and pointing out that you simply can’t go beyond the Order or the powers of the Commission,” he said.
Nandlall’s request was made after government-nominated Commissioner Vincent Alexander claimed that the Commission had taken steps to investigate at least some of the claims made by the coalition.
“With specific reference to the migrants, that information has been submitted and forwarded to the Chief Immigration Officer,” Alexander told media outside the Arthur Chung Conference Centre.
He added that once a response is received, GECOM will be in a position to make a decision as that will be “conclusive evidence” and the public will then have concrete information about whether migrants voted and whether dead persons voted.
Opposition-nominated Commissioner Sase Gunraj was, however, adamant that the Commission has made no such decision.
“The law does not allow GECOM to conduct any investigation and further as far I know the Commission has taken no decision to investigate,” Gunraj stressed before questioning whether the Secretariat would have dispatched such a letter.
“If the Secretariat is engaged in such an activity they are engaging in a frolic of their own and (this) will have consequences… assuming but not conceding. It must be met with consequences,” he concluded.
APNU+AFC is continuing to claim that there was multiple voting at polling stations but it has not explained how this would have been possible in light of the safeguards in place and considering that their agents were present at the polling stations.
Meanwhile, the GECOM Secretariat managed to recount 82 ballot boxes yesterday, bringing the 24-day total to 1,555 of 2,339. This leaves 784 boxes still to be recounted.
According to Public Relations Officer Yolanda Ward, the 82 boxes included 25 boxes from District Four, 24 from District Six, 13 from District 10, 11 from District Nine and 9 from District Eight.
Tabulation numbers for the end of day 24 stood at 1,521 for General Statement of Recounts and 1,491 for Regional Statement of Recounts.
Table showing the number of ballot boxes recounted as of Day 24. GECOM has completed the tabulation of votes in Districts One, Two, Three, Five and Seven. It is expected that the certificates of recount for Districts Three and Seven will be signed today. Also expected today is the completion of the District Eight recount.