GECOM moves to cross-match fingerprints, verify residency before issuing ID cards

Apr 30, 2022 News

– to ensure no citizen registers more than once

Kaieteur News – Given its commitment to ensuring that all citizens provide accurate information, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has moved to tighten the registration process.
According to a statement issued by the electoral body on Thursday, GECOM has added an extra layer to the verification procedure. The new system will require the commission to conduct due diligence checks for double registrations by cross-matching the fingerprints of all applicants for registration against those of the registrants who are listed in the National Register of Registrants (NRR).
Additionally, GECOM is requiring that residency verification be completed relative to the processing of an application for registration.
As such, the commission is requiring registrants to provide accurate information in a timely manner.
According to GECOM, there are a variety of statutory forms that must be filled when applying for any of the various registration transactions, as a matter of Commission policy, by GECOM Registration Staff – a task that they are trained extensively to perform.
Accordingly, applicants for registration are not permitted to fill any of the forms.
GECOM, therefore, stressed that it recognises that individual persons have their respective signatures which they have been using customarily.
The Commission noted that “…There is no prescribed signature requirement which must be met by applicants for registration, save and except for placing their signature in the space provided for this purpose.”
According to GECOM, residency verification is a statutory component process which must be completed relative to the processing of an application for registration.
In this regard, the Commission – as a matter of policy – decided that registration staff must visit the residential address provided by an applicant no sooner than 48 hours after the application was made.
The justification for this is to discourage persons applying for registration from using addresses where they do not reside.
Further, this measure is pivotal to the correct placement of eligible persons in any List of Electors to ensure that they are correctly listed to vote at polling stations for the catchment area that is pertinent to their residential addresses.
National Identification Cards are produced and issued to persons whose applications for registration are successful.
In this regard, GECOM noted that it is responsible to ensure that no person is listed more than once in the NRR.
Accordingly, the Commission conducts due diligence checks for double registrations by cross-matching the fingerprints of all applicants for registration against those of the registrants who are listed in the NRR.
It follows that fingerprints taken from applicants for registration during any given registration exercise can be dispatched for cross-matching only after the close of the exercise.
According to the Elections Commission, the fingerprint cross-matching is currently outsourced to an overseas contractor.
“It is only after the applicants for registration have been cleared as new applicants for registration, through this methodology, that they are committed to the NRR and ID Cards would be produced for them. It is not unusual for this to take place until about two months after the closure of the particular registration exercise,” GECOM noted.

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