In 2020 there were many ballots cast for persons who did not present themselves

Oct 30, 2024 Letters

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Dear Editor,

I write to expose Commissioner Rohee`s lack of knowledge and/or understanding, as evident in his recent letter in the media, in relation to the concerns that I have consistently raised about the Voter`s List and the application of biometrics (digital fingerprint identification at the place of poll) as a means of mitigating, if not altogether preventing, impersonation (the casting of votes for persons who themselves did not turn up to vote), as was proven to have happened during the 2020 general and regional elections.

Rohee`s first contention was that it is “disingenuous” to compare the figures of the 2012 census: 750,000 and the 728,556 (Sic) of the current voter`s list since “the Guyanese population must have grown over the years considering the influx of Guyanese re-migrants as well as their children by descent”. Rohee seems to be referencing the figures of the 2022 census, which have not been released to the public. If not, he is being rather speculative.

The numbers provided by him shows that the voting population (Guyanese aged 18 plus) of 2024 exceeds the voting population of 2012 (475,000) by 253,556. Presuming, the percentage rate of growth of the population from 2012 to present has remained static that puts the current population at 1,156,438, an overall population increase of 406,438 or approximately 54%. This figure does not cater for the deceased.

Insider, Jagdeo, has estimated the current population to be approximately 900,000. Rohee should check in with Jagdeo before questioning the wisdom of my use of the last census` figures (750,000) as a base year, since an understanding of the population`s growth lends to an understanding of the growth of the electorate, a sub-grouping of the population.

In his second contention: “all finger prints are used in the crossing-match exercise” Rohee exposes his lack of knowledge, or information, about the cross-matching exercise. While, it is true that all of the fingerprints are used in cross-matching, it has been determined that the quality of the manually captured prints does not provide for all of them to be effectively crossed-matched. This was determined by GECOM and the Cross-Matching Provider, after the aborted house-to-house registration in 2019 identified a number of duplicates which had not been captured in the crossing-matching exercise. This was attributed to the quality of some of the prints, all of which were manually captured.

Rohee`s subsequent contention that the manual prints can be digitised misses the point. Indeed, they can be digitised but the faulty ones will remain faulty and of little or no use for effective cross-matching. In an electronic system, we all know it is ‘garbage in’, ‘garbage out’. Rohee`s contention is equally garbage in, garbage out.

Of necessity, I repeat here that in 2020 there were many ballots cast for persons who did not present themselves. GECOM refused to review the conduct of the elections in order to determine the effectiveness of its systems and falls back on the PPP/C mantra that ‘all mechanisms are in place to prevent impersonation’, yet the evidence proves otherwise.

A corollary to this concern is that GECOM has no mechanism to remove the overseas dead from the list and in that regard the claim of a ‘bloated’ list is grounded. It is those same names of overseas persons which were verified as having been used for voter impersonation.

Digital fingerprint identification at the place of poll provides a universally accepted and used mechanism that would prevent voter impersonation. Fingerprints are not forgeable. Digitally captured prints will not be sub-quality as may occur in the instance of some manually captured prints.

Faulty fingerprints are rejected by the software when the prints are being captured digitally, hence the rationale for, and benefit of, capturing fingerprints digitally, in the registration process. Only perfect prints will be registered on the system. Hence, subsequent cross-matching will cross-match all of the prints thus detecting all of the duplicates.

Rohee`s other contentions are fallacious, but more importantly not germane to the issue at hand: a voter`s list that cannot facilitate votes being cast for dead or alive absentee voters.

Yours truly,

Vincent Alexander

GECOM Commissioner

 

(In 2020 there were many ballots cast for persons who did not present themselves)

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• biometrics, Commissioner, GECOM, Jagdeo, Vincent Alexander

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