Time for ‘distance voting’

Aug 05, 2025 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Kaieteur News – I have a few remarks concerning the upcoming elections, and my goal is just to get some people thinking ahead, and thus make proper choices on the day of poling, and for future elections.

First, as I go back to the 1968 general elections (and by extension to those that succeeded until 1992), the People’s National Congress only attained a majority government through electoral fraud, using an inflated “overseas vote” to skew the results in their favour. The PNC amazingly won 93.7% of the 36,745 overseas ballots, allowing Linden Forbes Burnham to claim an absolute majority. However, an independent review by the Opinion Research Centre of London was only able to verify 15% of the entries on the overseas list. An investigation looking into the identity of some of the voters found that two horses near Manchester, a closed butcher’s shop in Brooklyn and a railway in London had been counted as registered voters, and there were many addresses where the reported voters had never been resident. Only just over 100 voters of 900 checked in the United Kingdom were genuine, and in New York only 40% were genuine. Peter D’Aguiar called it “a seizure of power by fraud, not an election. This was known, but still needed corroboration.

Very informative and instructive is that ‘famous telegram from the US Ambassador that stated that “he (Burnham), intends to remain in power indefinitely” and “if necessary, he is prepared to employ unorthodox methods to achieve his aims. That method, recently re-echoed by Hamilton Green, is what is termed ‘rigging’ and which was attempted in 200, but was foiled.

Enough said and I will not belabour readers with what can be accessed quite easily, but suffice to say, I suggest that overseas voting for non-resident Guyanese be accommodated, and I am most piqued that the Guyana Elections Commission, GECOM, did not push for this for the upcoming polls.

As a caveat, this is not a retaliatory suggestion to get back for the Burnham ruse. I am suggesting this because this provision is well established and upon to my cursory check, more than a total of 140 countries have granted non-residents, such as emigrants or expatriates, the right to non-resident citizens voting. There is considerable variation across countries in regard to voter eligibility, voting modalities, etc., i.e., voting in person at diplomatic missions or other physical locations, by post or online, which elections nonresident citizens may vote in, i.e., elections of the national legislature, executive elections, referendums, or sub-national elections, and how nonresident citizen voters are represented. The number of countries enfranchising non-resident citizens accelerated significantly in the 1990s. Social scientists have advanced a number of claims about the causes and consequences of this development and debated its normative implications or pros and cons of nonresident citizen voting, but overall, the practice is now the norm.

The bottom line is that Guyanese of the Diaspora, worldwide, should be allowed to vote, from where ever they are residing. In this day of modern technologies, various consulates etc., the voting can be executed pre-poling day, in a rapid, easy and transparent manner. I repeat, no Burnham ruse can take place anymore, unless there is a dictatorship that has isolated the rest of the free world, bereft of independent and accredited international observers.
This now takes me to my second comment, and this has to do with campaigning for prisoners to vote. I specifically refer to” Open Letter to Elections Observers,” by A. Rampersaud, who, thus far has been quite tardy, as he did promise a series of such letters. Since his repetitive piece is basically a monotone, I just extracted “But Mr. Gunraj’s troubling conduct does not stop at social media commentary. His recent statement that GECOM “lacks the mechanism” to allow incarcerated persons to vote reflects a disturbing abdication of responsibility. The Constitution of Guyana is unambiguous. Article 59 declares that every citizen of Guyana aged 18 and over has the right to vote. There is no constitutional clause that automatically strips this right from someone simply because they are incarcerated-especially those awaiting trial or serving time for non-serious offences.”

As expected, my question is why not press for the scattered Diaspora to vote. I remind you that back in February 2020, the Court of Appeal ratified that residency is not a requirement for voting in Guyana, thereby upholding the 2019 decision of the High Court to block the removal of persons from the National Register of Registrants Data Base (NRDB), particularly those residing overseas. The reason was pointed out that “There is no need to introduce an additional requirement of residency, when residency has been established for registration process, which process would have led to the National Register and the subsequent List of Electors. Thus, it is our finding that the provisions in Article 159 of the Constitution, being in absolute terms, do not import an additional requirement of residency for Guyanese citizens,” Simply put, Guyanese, irrespective of their place of abode, MUST be accommodated to vote.

I invite Guyanese, to carefully analyze what is the legacy of that Burnham Ruse and press for their democratic right. GECOM must enact the ‘modernism of voting’ not by a day, a time and a place, all unique to being at the time in Guyana, but from anywhere, and even employ early voting. I therefore call on the Attorney General, GECOM and the PPP Government to proceed with my clamoring, as it is wholly justified. I want to vote with ease, comfort and transparency. This is the cry of the Guyanese Diasporas. This I know, also, it is that we need PPP/C Chapters in the Diaspora, especially in North America.

Yours truly,

Hargesh B. Singh

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• Distance voting, Elections, Hargesh B. Singh, PNC

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