I laud GECOM’s CEO for his vigilance that thwarted efforts to insert fake statements of poll

Jun 01, 2015 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Having read the latest Release of Commissioners Gunraj, Mangar and Shaw, I am replying posthaste to avoid the public falling prey to their attempt to misrepresent, mislead and misinform. I will respond point by point notwithstanding their convoluted ten points.
Before I do so, may I point out that the core issue is whether GECOM compiled and published results based on fake and or falsified statements of poll? The answer categorically is NO.
The results of the Returning Officers (ROs) were cross referenced with the political parties and found to be identical. The PPPC, at the level of District 4, did raise some objections but never presented their statements of polls, at that level, to support their  contentions, although they were requested , and given an opportunity, to do so.
However, the subsequent submission of statements of polls by a PPPC  delegation provided an opportunity for the issue, of the alleged compilation of results, in District 4, based on falsified statements of polls, to be determined. It was determined that the statements of polls presented by the PPPC, as the original/authentic statements, were no different tothose used by the RO in her compilation.
The aforementioned, alone, gives credence to the results that GECOM declared and should bring closure to the matter.However, for the benefit of the public. I will proceed to respond to the ten points, although these exchanges are of little value in determining a matter that, at this stage, can only be determined by the court.
Their first point states the following quote: “‘it was determined in the hours leading up to the final declarations that GECOM had to deliberately discard several documents from its own Information Technology (IT) Department.
This was because of emerging evidence that all was not right with those IT result and that some fake Statements of Poll (SOPs) somehow entered GECOM’”. That quote is nowhere in my statement which was carried verbatim as a letter. That is their first misleading representation.
Since I never sought to identify where the fakes originated, it is therefore a moot point, in response to my missive, to seek to clarify that no fakes could have originated from IT. Further, what IT received or did not receive is irrelevant to the results declared since as I stated that pathway was abandoned, as a part of the process of the tabulation of the results, when found to be corrupted.
It was clearly decided to bypass that pathway but the antagonists commissioners seem bent on keeping the irrelevant IT Department in the picture for reasons best known to themselves. Any report emanating from IT was therefore a non-issue but the antagonists requested one and were presented with the obviously faulty and incomplete document, which the Chairman quite rightly withdrew. What should be noted is that the CEO never intended, or sought, to table that document, since it had its origin in a pathway that was known to be corrupted and had been abandoned.
The second point is of nuisance value. No bases were given for the requested recounts thus the ruling of the ROs brought the matter to an end. The Representation of the People‘s Act clearly states:  “ A duly appointed …, may request the returning officer to have the votes recounted or again recounted; but the returning officer may refuse such request if in his opinion it is unreasonable.” (Section 88) GECOM was in the business of producing credible result rather pandering to baseless requests.
There is no new point in three. I did state that fake statements were discovered and reported on by the CEO, hence my use of the phrase “should have been”.
The fourth point continues to ignore the fact that the corrupted pathway was abandoned and that as an exigency the pathway of the ROs was resorted to, as agreed.
While, the law required the CEO to do a tabulation it never indicated that IT was to be its mandatory source. An electronic report was mandated and the CEO attested to the electronic nature of one of the reports he presented. He also attested to the cross checking of his electronic report with the ten declarations. The antagonists accused me of being omniscient but they are the ones who seem so since they are aware of all that was done or not done in every department, although Commissioners were not omnipresent. No doubt the ROs declarations and that of the CEO are separate but only sequentially so.
That the ROs‘ declarations are legal dictates that the CEO‘s can only differ if corrections are done to the ROs‘ but in the finally analysis the CEO‘s declaration is summative of the ROs‘. It should however be noted that the authorized abandonment of one pathway necessitated the use of the ROs pathway in a manner not previously contemplated. That the antagonist refuses to recognize that decision and the need for such a decision is cause for concern.
What is of greater cause for concern is their attempt to deem the CEO‘s action illegal when the Representation of the People‘s Act specifically states: “The Chief Elections Officer shall, after calculating the total number of valid votes of electors which have been cast for each list of candidates, on the basis of the votes counted and the information furnished by returning officers under section 84 (11), ascertain the result of the election in accordance with section 97 and 98. (section 96 (1) (author‘s emphasis). That is exactly what the CEO did.
The fifth point about the Media Centre is irrelevant to the core issue, although, if not more than anyone else, I was a protagonist in 2011 and again in 2015 for the publicity of results in a more detailed and transparent manner. The media results were however never intended to be official and have no standing in this issue.
Six is indeed the gravamen of the matter. It has already been pointed out above that the statements routed to the ROs were not corrupted and the evidence in that regard presented. It is not a matter of Mr. Alexander‘s knowledge. It is a matter of ten reports emanating from a legitimate process. The reports were received by all and no one questioned them, not to mention the open, inclusionary and transparent process that produced those reports. I find the malicious contentions in six despicable and disingenuous.
As for seven, I have repeatedly explained that at the level of the RO no evidence was submitted. I have also said that the evidence produced at another level when checked did not contradict the ruling of the RO.
Eight will remain a matter of dispute; suffice to say that I tabled the proposal on the way forward and no counter proposal was proffered by anyone else. It was the only logical approach for the efficient determination of a credible result in the circumstance, while investigating the apparent systemic problem, which had been isolated. It was also an approach which adhered to section 96 (1) as quoted above.
That the antagonists did not recognize or sought not to recognize my reference to all of the various discrepancies in the fake statements of polls, which the CEO discerned and the commissioners attested to, is merely a deflection that adds nothing to the substantive matter. They were all nullified by the decision to abandon the affected pathway.
Nine has already been answered so many times and in so many ways that it would be useless to answer to it as it is, in itself, tautological.
As to ten and the requests for recounts, accounts were requested at three different stages. The first request was administered, although the legal requirements were never met. They proved futile. As for the second set of requests, they were turned down for the want of bases, given the district verifications that were conducted and not contested except for District 4, the basis for which was dismissed.
As I said in my previous statement I know of no provision in law for the third request for a national recount in addition to the fact that the basis was either evidentially deficient or already dismissed.
As for the requested information that matter is wrongly addressed, suffice to say that the PPPC has all of the official statements of polls but wishes GECOM to provide information to further validate its declaration rather than them providing information to support their case. As for the gazetted declaration, GECOM washandicapped by the non-submission of the legally required submission of the names of the candidates, which were to be extracted from the lists. On this, the law is quite explicit. Section 99 of the Representation of the People‘s Act states  that:” As soon as possible but not later than fifteen days after election day the Commission shall publicly  declare the results of the election and shall cause to be published in the Gazette a notification thereof, specifying-
(a)    …;
(b)    …;
(c)    …; and
(d)    the names of the persons who, as a result of election, have become members of the National Assembly;”
The non-submission of those names, in a timely manner, is the reason for the delay in the publication of the results.
Hopefully, it will better the performance of2011 when elections were held on November 28 and the results gazetted on Jan 11, 2012.
May I conclude by saying that the place for redress is the court. I doubt whether any substantive basis can be found to nullify the wok of GECOM and I anxiously await the findings with regard to the culprits who produced and inserted faked statements into the system. I laud the CEO for his vigilance that thwarted their efforts.
Here ends my fumigations as my statement has been deemed to be by the musketeers but otherwise deemed informative and educative by those who seek the truth.
Vincent Alexander
GECOM Commissioner

NB. Please note that I am a GECOM Commissioner and not a PNCR or APNU or any such commissioner.

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