GECOM split on measures to sanitise list

Oct 17, 2019 News

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) is yet to decide on how to treat with unverified voters after the Claims and Objections exercise comes to an end.
The Commission has already resolved that all 646,625 entries on the Preliminary List of Electors (PLE) need to be verified. Of that lot, about 336,000 are expected to be verified from the data GECOM got from the recently suspended House-to-House exercise.
The Commission, headed by Chair, (ret’d) Justice Claudette Singh S.C., had decided it would use the data, despite halting the exercise. The data will be displayed for public scrutiny immediately after encoding is completed, prior to the end of the Claims and Objections period.
Persons on the PLE, who were not registered during House-to-House Registration, are required to visit the GECOM office serving the area in which they live to ensure that their particulars are verified.

Commissioner Charles Corbin

GECOM has made the PLE available online, at the following link: http://www.gecom.org.gy/home/ple
This is useful for persons who may wish to ensure all details about their registration are correct.
Some persons may fail to visit the GECOM office, rendering their registrations unverified, and the Commission is yet to decide on what to do with those names.
Commissioner Charles Corbin, who provided clarity on this matter, yesterday, said three options are before the Commission. The first would see unverified names being struck off of the list, meaning that they would not appear on the Revised List of Electors (RLE).
The second option would see GECOM producing two lists, separating unverified names from verified names. The third option would see GECOM producing one list, with the unverified names expressly highlighted.
Corbin was explicit in saying that a decision hasn’t been made in this regard.
Kaieteur News understands that the Commission did not vote on this matter during the most recent statutory meeting on Tuesday last, due to the absence of Commissioner Sase Gunraj. It is expected to meet tomorrow, but it is unclear whether a decision will be made then.
On another issue, GECOM is also considering how to treat with a large number of persons it has failed to locate after repeated attempts to do so. According to Commissioners who spoke to reporters after Tuesday’s meeting, that number was somewhere upward of 20,000.
These persons came to the attention of GECOM because they failed to uplift their ID cards. Corbin told Kaieteur News that GECOM made at least two separate attempts at different times in different years to find these persons, but was unsuccessful.
Those efforts involved sending registration staff to visit the addresses of those persons, and sending written communications through the mail. The information concerning these registrants was also shared with stakeholders who the Commission thought could be instrumental in assisting in locating them.
He said that those efforts did not substantially reduce the number of persons on that list. This time around, the proposal is for the Commission to follow the specific procedures laid out in the National Registration Act pursuant to the cancellation of their registration.
Commissioner Vincent Alexander told reporters after the meeting: “We are using the ID card issue to determine the presence of our voters, their presence, their existence. The issue is not the ID card; the issue is that these persons, since 2008 and beyond, have not in any way presented themselves to be known, to be alive, to be existing, to be resident and the calling them, writing to them gives us the opportunity to make a determination in the context of an objection to say where are they.”
The cancellation of names is likely to get the support of the three Government-nominated Commissioners, and if the Chair votes in support, the decision would pass without the support of the three Opposition-nominated Commissioners.
Commissioner Bibi Shadick had told reporters that the likely cancellation of unverified names is just another effort to prevent people from voting.
Corbin stated categorically that GECOM must follow scrupulously all the procedures laid down in the National Registration Act prior to the cancellation of any registration. But Commissioner Robeson Benn, in agreement with Shadick, warned that such a decision would warrant court action.
Late last night, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) criticised the proposals to have unverified names removed from the list. It accused Government of preparing the ground to set aside the elections as illegal and unconstitutional, or rig it in their favour.

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News