Phase 2 of recount kicks in

…All eyes on CEO for report on results
…President maintains only GECOM can declare winner

By Svetlana Marshall

THE completion of the recount and tabulation of votes cast at the General and Regional Elections now paves the way for the Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield to compile his reports on the electoral process for submission to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).

Those reports not only include a tabulation of the matrices for the recount of the 10 Electoral Districts, but also a summary of the Observation Reports for each District. Based on the Statements of Recount (SORs), which were generated and tabulated at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC), the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) has secured 233,336 votes, while the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU+AFC) raked in 217,920 votes.

But while the recount shows the PPP/C in the lead by 15,416 votes, the recount unearthed massive irregularities, and alleged cases of electoral fraud, which reportedly have compromised 90,000 votes.

During the National Recount, more than 41 ballot boxes were discovered with none of the statutorily required documents, while other boxes had missing Certificates of Employment, Official Lists of Electors, Oaths of Identity, Poll Books, Unused Ballots and Counterfoils.
There were also cases where the Oaths of Identity were unsigned, and ballots were either unstamped or partially stamped, resulting in their being deemed “Rejected”. Further to that, the APNU+AFC has cited more than 3,000 cases in which it alleged that unscrupulous people voted in the place of the dead, or persons who were out of the jurisdiction on March 2 when the General and Regional Elections were held here. According to the APNU+AFC, these irregularities have amounted to 6,000 cases, which point to electoral fraud, and have affected some 90,000 votes.

These irregularities were recorded in Observation Reports during the recount of votes at the level of the workstations, and will form a major part of the reports that would be compiled by the Chief Elections Officer.

As the tabulation of the SORS came to a close at the Conference Centre on Monday, PPP/C Executive Member, Anil Nandlall told reporters that while it is the responsibility of the Chief Elections Officer to compile Observation Reports, in addition to a report on the tabulation of votes, he cannot be subjective in his reporting to the Elections Commission, chaired by Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh.

NO PERSONAL INPUT

“The Order does not provide for the CEO to have any personal subjective input. He is simply to summarise the Observation Reports, and tabulate, aggregate and total the numbers, which would have been tabulated, and which would have been put on the Certificates, constituting the declaration of results for each of the region,” Nandlall said. “There is no place; I want to emphasise, no place for the Chief Elections Officer to inject a personal opinion, to offer any recommendation of any sort, whatsoever,” he submitted.

According to Nandlall, the CEO’s duty is “mechanical and straightforward.”
According to the amended Order, which legally triggered the recount of the votes, the CEO’s reports must be submitted on or before June 13, 2020 to allow for deliberation at the level of the Elections Commission. The amended order states: “The Commission shall, after deliberating on the report… determine whether it should request the Chief Election Officer to use the data compiled… as the basis for the submission of a report under Section 96 of the Representation of the People Act, Cap 1:03…”

Once the second report is compiled, the Elections Commission will have no more than three days to declare the results of the final credible count of the Elections.

While the High Court, in March, indicated that Article 162 (1) (b) gives wide powers to the Elections Commission to ensure an impartial and fair elections process, Nandlall is contending that it is not within GECOM’s remit to investigate the irregularities that surfaced during the recount, as he pointed to Article 163 of the Constitution.

“There are things that can be done in arecount exercise, and there are things which cannot be done. So GECOM, lawfully, has no jurisdiction, no power, no authority to pronounce on credibility, legality or validity of its process. In any event by the principle of natural justice, one cannot be a judge, in one’s own cause,” he opined.

While there have been glaring evidence of irregularities, the PPP/C has maintained that the recount was merely numerical, though the Order the reconciliation of the ballots issued with the ballots cast, destroyed, spoiled, stamped, and as deemed necessary, their counterfoils/stubs; authenticity of the ballots and the number of voters listed and crossed out as having voted.

SMALL PARTIES

Notwithstanding the provisions of the Order, a number of small political parties have also argued that it is not for GECOM to act on the irregularities. “In relation to the dead and migrated voters, and the question of anomalies proposed by the APNU+AFC, we do not support those claims. We do see that persons had the right to vote; they came out, they exercised their franchise, and they did what is best for them,” Change Guyana Representative Dexter George said. According to him, the electoral process was fair.

A New and United Guyana (ANUG) Representative Mark France, while noting that the recount was a reflection of the contents of the ballot boxes, acknowledged that the electoral process is not completed. “It (the recount) was done as the law would have said and the numbers reflect what exactly were in those boxes…It is a true reflection of the materials, in terms of the votes, that were in those boxes. The other aspects that the recount is looking at will not be finished in terms of just looking at the numbers here,” France told reporters outside of the Conference Centre.

Nonetheless, Nandlall expressed the hope that the remaining components of the electoral process will be concluded in an orderly fashion, and in keeping with the letter and spirit of the Order, the Constitution, and the Representation of the People Act. Asked whether GECOM should await the report of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Scrutinising Team before arriving at its declaration of the results of elections, Nandlall responded in the negative.

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