GECOM fails to provide answers on specifics of voters’ list

Aug 24, 2025 News

…No data given on number of Commonwealth voters, Guyanese voters or first-time voters

GECOM fails to provide answers on specifics of voters’ list

CEO Vishnu Persaud

Kaieteur News – Officials of the Guyana Elections Commission have failed to provide key information as it relates to the breakdown of the Official List of Electors (OLE). While the commission announced that 757,690 persons are listed to vote, officers failed to provide key data as it relates to categories of voters on the OLE.

When asked to provide a breakdown on the number of voters who are Commonwealth citizens or citizens by birth, naturalization or descent during a recent press conference the Chief Elections Officer, Vishnu Persaud said GECOM has had no reason to do so.

“First of all, we register persons who met the criteria of being 18 years and over by June 30th, who are Guyanese citizens or citizens of a Commonwealth country living in Guyana for one year or more.

Now, I started out by saying we register electors, we have no charge, no reason to categorize electors by nationality. That is not something that the secretariat has been charged to do, we have not done so, and unless we are asked specifically to do so, then we have no grounds on which to do it,” the CEO said in response to the questions surrounding the specifics of the voters list.

Faced with a similar question as to how many persons on the OLE are first-time voters, officers of the commission said they did not have that data readily available, but they could provide it later.

The size of OLE released by GECOM has raised concerns among some sections of society. Alluding to the issue, Opposition-appointed Commissioner, Vincent Alexander said on Wednesday that he is not surprised at the size given that the list contains persons registered as of 2008. According to the commissioner GECOM has created condition for the list to be bloated and for voter impersonation to take place.

“We have a system, where we have not perfected mechanism of taking the dead off the list, internally the registrar of births and deaths sends to GECOM a list of the registered deaths. Once, we get that list, we flag those names, but we have evidence to the fact that that list is deficient, and they are persons whose names are on the list who would have died years ago. Thousands of overseas dead are on the list.”

Alexander referenced a recent incident where a dead person’s name was detected on the voters’ list.

Combined with this, Alexander pointed to GECOM’s flawed facial identification process.

He explained that “GECOM does not make it mandatory for persons to have updated ID cards. So, you might find a person who registered when they were 14 years old having the same ID card at age 30 and that it was, they will identify them as they vote. There is no way that, that person looks the same. This is how voter impersonation can occur.”

Further, Alexander noted that in 2020 there was evidence of overseas Guyanese verified as being voted for in Guyana.

“Given the actual number of voters who are in country, probably not more than 500,000…there was indicator that votes may have been cast for absent person. That was confirmed by the verification of the absentee votes by the Chief Immigration Officer,” he stated.

Presidential candidate of the Forward Guyana Movement (FGM), Amanza Walton- Desir, had also raised concerns over the size of OLE.

In a live post via the official Facebook page on Tuesday, Walton-Desir noted that the size of OLE should be of concern to all citizens and political parties.

“Somebody explain it to us, why is our official list of electors, the size of population. Our population may have grown but they refused to release the census. Guyanese people wake up and understand what is happening and demand answers. Because I can tell you that if you don’t, what they want is to have elections and stuff those ballot boxes.”

“We have been trying to get information on GECOM and the voter’s list, now we have a situation where, we don’t know how many foreigners are on our list, we don’t know how many Commonwealth citizens are on our list, this is a problem because it means that there are people and through the machinations of the PPP, will get on our list and thwart the will of the people of Guyana, this is serious business” Walton Desir said.

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Elections, GECOM, Vishnu Persaud, voters' list

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