House-to-house registration: GECOM captures less people than anticipated

Jul 09, 2008 News

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has registered a total of 430,000 persons during the house-to-house registration, which came to an end on July 4, last. GECOM was hoping to register some 535,000 persons, but this was not the case.

Chairman of the Elections Commission, Dr. Steve Surujbally, said that the commission took the Official List of Electors (OLE) from the 2006 elections and added 20 per cent to it, which gave them the 535,000 figure.

But according to Dr. Surujbally, only 69 per cent of the voters turned up to vote at the 2006 polls. He said that this should have signaled that the OLE was greatly inflated; that the people were just not there.

He said that there was a problem in the interim because legally, the commission could not remove the names of anyone from the list. This led to the large number on the list after the house to house registration to facilitate the polls.

However, as it is currently, some persons are still complaining that they have not been registered by the Elections Commission.

This is to be rectified, as GECOM is slated to recommence continuous registration, which will start as soon as the National Register of Registrants’ Database (NRRDB) is completed.

A source at GECOM told this newspaper that not all the reports have been received from the fields as yet, especially from the interior locations, and this can be the reason for the low registration.

It was noted that based on the needs of editing, the number of persons registered could decrease since some transactions may lack the information required.

Close to 3,500 transactions were processed each day during the registration exercise. To assist in the process, GECOM had employed an additional 50 persons.

The primary objective of the house-to-house registration exercise is to establish an accurate, complete and current National Register of Registrants’ Database (NRRDB).

GECOM had earlier stated that Members of the Disciplined Forces comprising the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), the Guyana Police Force (GPF), the Guyana Prison Service (GPS) and the Guyana Fire Service (GFS) will generally be registered at their respective places of residence.

Special arrangements will be made to ensure that members of any of the Disciplined Forces who are stationed at locations far removed from their places of residence will be registered at their current locations.

The imperative to conduct house-to-house registration was born out of the need for the creation of an indisputable NRRDB which could be used as the basis for the preparation of Electoral Lists that would be commonly acceptable by all stakeholders as being unblemished.

With this in mind, the Government of Guyana, Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and the Parliamentary Political Parties agreed on June 14, 2007, to the preparation of a new NRRDB by House-to-House Registration.

GECOM is now expecting that the creation of this new database, which would lead to the establishment of future Electoral Lists, would be commonly acceptable by and among all Political Parties and other stakeholders.

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House-to-house registration: GECOM captures less people than anticipated

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