The massive increase in the Voters’ List creates potential for electoral misfeasance

Mar 28, 2015 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
Based on the 2002 census, roughly 39.06% of population is ineligible to vote, meaning they are under 18 years. The population has not changed, as the preliminary 2012 census results confirmed.
The 39.06% and 60.94% percentages from the 2002 census are consistent with the 1991 census which revealed the non-voting age population at 39.40% and the voting age population at 60.60%. Considering the trend from 1991 and Guyana’s small population decline in the 2012 census, the voting age population is not expected to change or change only very insignificantly.
For a population of 747,884 based on the 2012 census, the 39.06% ineligible to vote population is 292,273 voters. This means the eligible to vote population should be around 455,611. The current 2014 Preliminary List of Electors (PLE) contains 567,125 electors. This is 111,514 more electors than what is statistically expected based on prior and recent census results on age of the population.
Guyana’s median age is around 24 years, which is similar to Jamaica that has 60% of population aged 18 years or older. There is a troubling statistical discrepancy here that must be addressed because it brings the entire electoral system and the democratic foundations of that system into question.
It also opens the election to potential rigging. 28 years of unelected dictatorship and 22 years of elected dictatorship reminds us of the need to be vigilant of the only strand of democracy and freedom left in this country; free and fair elections. If that is stolen, sabotaged or recklessly, incompetently and irresponsibly mismanaged, this country cannot recover from the consequences.  The PLE is supposed to be the list of all eligible voters, meaning all eligible voters 18 years and over. A humongous increase of 99,022 names in the 2014 PLE as against the 2011 Official List of Electors (OLE) against the backdrop of a census confirming population stagnation is very disturbing and warrants agitated inquiry.
We are talking an increase that amounts to 13.24% of the entire population, 21.73% of the estimated voting age population of 455,611 and 20.82% of the 475,496 registered voters in 2011. In fact, 567,125 electors on the 2014 PLE versus the 475,496 on the 2011 OLE is a 91,629 increase in voters, a statistical absurdity considering our population stagnation, increasing migration rates since 2011 and steady historical age percentages of the entire population. Even worse, regions that experienced population decline in the 2012 census had significant increases in registered voters on the 2014 PLE.
My suspicion is that the 2014 PLE, just like the 2011 OLE, has thousands of names of the dead and migrated. I did a cursory check of the 2014 PLE and found the names of several migrated individuals. However, this is not a new problem and it would have similarly inflated the 2011 OLE. The question is whether tens of thousands more of the dead and migrated have made their way onto the list since 2011 and whether there is a devious agenda to this increase.
The other explanations for the increase are fictional names and names of individuals under age 18. Given that the registration is from age 14, I suspect some of those names are persons under 18 years who were initially registered. This could be tens of thousands of names. If these failures have indeed occurred, it would suggest we have a serious problem of data integrity failure, manipulation, possible fraud, gross incompetence and absurd systems.
Those breakdowns must come from either the government side or Gecom’s side or both. With Gecom already highlighting GRO’s (under Rohee’s mandate) failure to provide information to update the National Register of Registrants (NRR), we already know one source of the problem. The issue here is whether we are dealing with source database corruption where both the PPP government and Gecom have access to source databases of registration of all citizens and electors.
This fiasco raises the potential of electoral fraud, confusion and angst. Fictional electors can be provided fake ID cards. Without technology to verify photo IDs, IDs can be created for migrated and dead individuals on the PLE and eventually the OLE. With ink removal easier, multiple voting can occur, using false IDs with transferable names. Underage voters whose names are on the PLE, and eventually the OLE, can produce an ID card where scrutineers fail to check dates of birth and can vote. The PLE and OLE have no date of birth details!
The inflated PLE 2014 compared to the OLE 2011 is a statistical absurdity. For all its astounding resources and its established willingness to use government resources to do its political bidding, the PPP is yet to provide the nation with the list of 91,629 names that has inflated the 2014 PLE over the 2011 OLE. Nor has Gecom for that matter. This is a stain on both organizations. The continued appearance of these names on any electoral list is an egregious disgrace, electoral shoddiness and an assault on democracy itself.
This is serious stuff. This debacle is the sum of an aggressive and calculated assault on the electoral process in this country since the days of the PNC and now under the PPP, along with an embedded culture of incompetence. Gecom has always been a challenged organization.
We cannot advance blindly into an election without ensuring the electoral terra firma is indeed firm, resolute and strong enough to repudiate attacks on its integrity, systems, culture, people and ability to deliver democracy in free and fair fashion. The opposition’s position of nonchalance to this list is just as menacing as the PPP’s possibly fake protestations about it.
Who knows if the PPP is simply shedding crocodile tears on this 2014 PLE when it secretly loves the inflated list? Remember the PPP controls vital source databases for creating this list in the first place. The very integrity of our electoral system is at stake here. Those most likely to benefit from any electoral incompetence or nastiness, the two giants in the PPP and PNC, just gave us manipulated party elections. We cannot continue to advance down this path to perdition.
The 2014 PLE needs to be fixed, the discrepancies explained, the gremlins sorted and the dark clouds removed by cleaning up the list and by implementing additional measures on Election Day such as exit polls, multiple inked fingers, date of birth ID scrutiny, funding for additional scrutineers for all parties at all voting booths, funding for more observers, establish text and website services to report suspicious activity, etc, to minimize election fraud.
M. Maxwell

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