The bloated Voters’ List makes the May 11, 2015 election ripe for rigging

May 03, 2015 Letters

---

Dear Editor,
I believe that this letter is of critical importance to this country on the eve of its closest election since 1964. The massive increase in the voters’ list is a travesty that opens the entire electoral process to manipulation and rigging. GECOM continues to be evasive with respect to providing information and in doing so, it has only added fuel to the skepticism that surrounds this dirty Voters’ List.
A statistical explanation and justification for the inflated Voters’ List cannot be found. A declining population as evidenced by the 2002 census (751,223) to the 2012 census (747,884) cannot statistically translate to such a massive increase in the voting age population in a mere five years. The 2011 official list of electors (OLE) had 475,496 electors. The 2015 OLE has 570,786, an increase of 95,290.
Counting the voting age population as every voter from the 20 years to 75+ years age bracket plus two-fifths or 40% of the 15-19 years bracket, the voting age and non-voting age populations and percentages of general population for the 1991 and 2002 censuses were as follows: 1991 (total population of 723,673, 301,809 non-voters (41.71%), 421,864 voters (58.29%), 2002 (total population of 751,223, 307,301 non-voters (40.91%), 443,922 voters (59.09%).
The 1991 and 2002 censuses have clearly shown that even with a population increase of 27,550 between 1991 and 2002, the voting age population as a percentage of the general population remained virtually stagnant. Clearly, it is statistically improbable to argue that with the population declining from 751,223 in 2002 to 747,884 in 2012, the massive increase in the voters list is statistically validated.
For a population of 747,884 based on the 2012 census, the 40.91% ineligible to vote population is 305,959 voters. This means the eligible to vote population should be around 441,925. The current 2014 Voters List contains 570,786 electors. This is 128,861 more voting age electors than what is statistically expected based on census results on age of the population.
Based on the 2012 general population of 747,884, a total of 570,786 electors provides a voting age population of 76.32% of the general population; a humongous number! That means only 177,098 Guyanese are not of voting age. The absurdity of this figure is exposed by looking at the 0-4 and 5-9 age groups of the 2002 census, which is comparable to the 2012 census given the small decline in the general population.
These two groups, which absolutely cannot vote in any election totaled 185,655 in 2002. This number does not even count the 10-13 year olds, who also absolutely cannot vote in a four-year period. The 10-14 year old group was 81,492 in 2002 with an average of 16,298 for each age and a total of 65,192 for all the 10-13 year olds.
Adding the 185,655 to the 65,192 produces a non-voting age population of 250,847, not the preposterous 177,098 non-voting age population this Voters’ List is shamefully producing. It is horrible that anyone would attempt to argue with a straight face that this Voters’ List is not a farcical absurdity that brings this election into serious disrepute.
GECOM’s Chairman, Mr. Surujbally, is reported to have stated that 37,355 registered persons who would not have been 18 years at the time of the 2011 OLE, had come of age for the 2015 OLE finalized in April 2015. Logically, these persons would have been between 14 years and 17 years at the time of the finalization of the 2011 OLE at the end of September 2011. These individuals had to be 14 years by April of 2011 to be added to the 2015 OLE. Because the government has failed to release the age breakdown for the 2012 census, the 2002 census provides the best estimate of the age statistics as the census results from 2002 are likely comparable to 2012, given the virtually similar general population size.
The 2002 census provides age statistics for two groups; 10-14 and 15-19. Without the actual data it is difficult to determine the total of each age number. However, an average is a statistically sound way to estimate how many persons existed for each age within that group.
In 2002, there were 81,492 persons in the age 10-14 group and 66,923 in the 15-19 group. Divided by five, the average number of persons for each age was 16,298 for each age between 10-14 and 13,384 for each age between 15-19. Taking 16,298 for the 14-year olds and 40,154 (13,385 x 3) for the 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds, the total number of 14- to 17-year-olds at the certification of the 2011 OLE should have been around 56,452.
This cohort of around 56,452 should have come of age, not the lesser number of 37,355 such persons Surujbally said came of age. Surujbally’s number is about 19,000 less than what is statistically expected for young voters coming of age between 2011 and 2015 and yet we have a shocking and frightening increase of the Voters’ List of some 95,290 persons. This further reinforces the decrepit fiasco that is this 2015 OLE.
How could the very group that is expected to fuel any massive increase of the voting age population (young people) be statistically smaller than expected and yet the entire Voters’ List has astronomically bloated to such insane levels? How could Mr. Surujbally expect us to accept his rantings that are increasingly exposed by simple mathematics?
The other concern is that the massive increase in the Voters’ List has occurred in regions that the 2012 census confirmed had falling populations. For example, Region Six, which likely has the highest voter registration rate due to the PPP’s lifelong activism there, has experienced a declining population between 2002 and 2012. Region 6 had 123,695 persons in 2002 and declined to 109,431 in 2012, a loss of 14,264 persons, yet it has an astounding increase of more than 13,000 registered voters in 2015!
The burning question is where is this major jump in the Voters’ List coming from?
My understanding is that the Voters’ List is created from data obtained from two primary sources; from GECOM through registration and from the government-controlled General Register Office (GRO), Passport Office (PO) and the Immigration Office (IO).
The Voters’ List can knowingly or unknowingly be padded by GECOM registration personnel doing house to house registrations or with access to the GECOM database that build the Voters’ List. Unknowing padding will occur where persons feed false or duplicate information to GECOM personnel who lack the capability or fail to test that information.
GECOM’s refusal to cooperate with the EAB in providing any cross-matching fingerprint analysis raises serious red flags, because this is one of the most effective methods of testing for fraud within the Voters’ List. Further, as far as I know, GECOM does not require fingerprinting before citizens vote and if it does, GECOM has never tested the fingerprint results after an election to determine whether multiple voting or illegal voting (such as underage voting) took place. How does GECOM verify, sanitize and purify its registration data fed to it by its personnel on the streets and where is the evidence that such analysis has occurred?
Then there is the manipulation of the Voters’ List that could come from the PPP government itself through the systems and databases that produce ID cards and passports (documents needed to register) and that feed immigration, birth and death data to GECOM. The PPP has complete control over these systems. There are no checks and balances over preventing the creation of false IDs and passports necessary to register voters. Data could be deliberately withheld, selectively produced, false data could be delivered and false registration source documents created to match the false entries.
While GECOM allegedly has no direct access to the government’s databases, that does not absolve GECOM from its constitutional, legal, civic and democratic duties of ensuring electoral integrity. If the information is not forthcoming or is deliberately withheld from government, GECOM has a duty to publicly shame the government into delivering that information.
Similarly, with the information that is provided by the government to GECOM, GECOM has a duty to test, validate, analyze, cross-match and discrepancy test that information and to publicly publish its
findings. GECOM also has massive historical databases, from which it should be able to conduct its own validation testing. Certainly, GECOM’s registration personnel get updated information on the migrated and dead directly from the households they visit.
GECOM should know who should not be on the list because they migrated or are dead from their own registration exercises, and they should be able to publicly broadcast their findings, and in doing so, to shame the government into fixing the information. Massive sums have been expended with each new election on GECOM, so it has resources and can analyze data.
GECOM can analyse, cross-match and seek discrepancies in this information using fingerprint, name, address, ID number, passport number, birth certificate number and other tests. Most critically, it can let the public know when there are concerns regarding this testing and its findings.
For heaven’s sake, GECOM had four years since 2011 to conduct these tests and we have had nothing. GECOM has failed to produce evidence from one single study into discrepancies, cross-matching or sample analysis. Despite repeated requests from the public, GECOM has failed to publish for scrutiny the list of 95,290 names that have made their way onto the Voters’ List. It has failed to publish whether GRO and the Immigration Office has submitted far less names for removal from the Voters’ List compared to the last elections. And this agency expects the public to accept this Voters’ List and the ensuing results of this election conducted on this statistically spurious Voters’ List as legitimate!
Mr. Surujbally’s comment that GECOM has myriad systems and measures to thwart multiple voting is commendable, but it misses the point that multiple voting is not the only problem. This may be an even bigger problem of flawed (innocent or deviant) source data – whether from the PPP government side or from GECOM itself.
Once you have a list of 95,000 persons larger than the last, or is 128,000 statistically higher than is numerically expected in a country of 747,884 people, this very travesty and tragedy opens the election every angle of rigging, thieving, wrongdoing, padding, ballot-stuffing, fake ID passing, vote-buying, polling station official bribing, underage voting, underage vote buying, ink removal and re-voting, and the stretching of already limited resources beyond its limits to the extent that the election oversight body cannot cover all the various angles, schemes and plans.
The parties that have the advantage in resources (the PPP is far ahead) can use this bloated list and the ridiculous increase in polling stations to match this artifice to literally extend and stretch the parties without resources. Further, if the OLE is stacked with overseas Guyanese, there is nothing to prevent a party with the means from paying for those persons to return to vote when they should not have been on the list in the first instance.
Has GECOM instituted any measures to prevent those who may have sold their votes for a price from taking cellphones into the polling booths to take photos to prove they voted for the party that bought their vote? What measures does it have to prevent bribery of GECOM’s polling station officials? What oversight mechanisms such as increased independent observers has it put in place for voting day? GECOM’s focus is the Statements of Polls on Election Day. If the system and process that led to the creation of those Statements of Polls is corrupt, the validation of a corrupt result is all that GECOM is doing. The dead and the migrated may vote in 2015.
When a voters’ list is dramatically inflated beyond statistical reason and explanation, it becomes receptive to all manner of skulduggery, for it provides a guise by sheer numbers for all manner of atrocity. The numbers don’t lie. GECOM has the numbers. Post-election volatility is too monstrous of a spectre for GECOM to continue to play defensive ostrich, head in sand and derriere in the air on this matter. It has seven days left to provide some answers.
M. Maxwell

---

---