‘Claims and objections process not fit to clean voters’ list’ – GECOM commissioners warn

Jan 20, 2026 News

---

(Kaieteur News) – Three Commissioners of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) have issued a stinging assessment of the country’s electoral registration system, warning that the current Claims and Objections (C&O) process is fundamentally incapable of sanitising Guyana’s voters’ list and that urgent political and legislative intervention is now required.

In a joint position articulated by Commissioners Vincent Alexander, Charles Corbin and Desmond Trotman, the trio described the belief that the voters’ list can be cleaned through routine C&O exercises as either “a lack of understanding of reality” or a deliberate refusal to acknowledge it. GECOM in a full-page newspaper advertisement on Sunday said it is currently conducting a Claims and Objectives Exercise, which commenced on January 5, 2026 and will end on January 22, 2026 regarding entries on the Preliminary List of Electors. The objective of the exercise GECOM said is to produce an Official List of Electors (OLE). In this regard, relevant extracts from the Preliminary List of Electors (PLE) have been posted at prominent locations in all of the Registration Divisions/Sub-Divisions and at all of the GECOM permanent Registration Offices across Guyana, the advertisement stated.

However, the commissioners, the C&O mechanism is structurally biased toward inclusion and actively discourages removal of ineligible names. “By design and practice, GECOM’s Claims and Objections process is biased for inclusion and a deterrent for exclusion,” the commissioners stated in a letter to this newspaper. They revealed that objections filed on the basis that a registrant no longer resides in a registration area or does not belong to the defined class of eligible voters have routinely been rejected by GECOM officials. Officers, they said, have been instructed that recent court rulings and legislative changes render such grounds obsolete.

As a result, the only objections that are now consistently upheld are those supported by a death certificate. “This effectively means that unless you can produce a death certificate, your objection is unlikely to succeed,” the commissioners pointed out.

They warned that the limited timeframe and restrictive criteria used during the C&O process were never intended to facilitate large-scale cleansing of the voters’ roll. Adding to the challenge, Alexander, Corbin and Trotman noted that ordinary citizens are more inclined to protect their own voting rights rather than pursue breaches committed by others. “Citizens rely on institutions to enforce protections. Sanitising the list therefore requires a unique institutional mechanism,” they said.

Political Action Now Required

The commissioners stressed that responsibility for resolving the crisis has shifted beyond the walls of GECOM. “The remedy to the malady of the corrupted electoral roll now lies in the political and legislative domains and not within the GECOM boardroom,” they declared. They called for a special legislative intervention, led and supported by the Attorney General, as the most viable solution under current political and legal conditions.

Warnings Ignored Since 2005

The commissioners traced the problem back nearly two decades, pointing out that when continuous registration was introduced in 2005, GECOM had already warned of its negative impact on the integrity of the voters’ list. Those concerns led to a multi-party agreement in June 2007 — supported by the Government and international partners — which resulted in the successful 2008 House-to-House Registration exercise. However, the problem resurfaced after the 2011 elections. GECOM then attempted another corrective measure: introducing expiry dates for voter ID cards.

Under that plan, ID cards were to expire on a registrant’s birthday seven years after registration, forcing voters to reappear in person to update information and photographs — a process the commissioners said would also make it difficult for deceased persons to remain on the list. “The implementation of this decision was frustrated by administrative challenges, which we believe were facilitated by influences external to GECOM,” the commissioners revealed.

2019 House-to-House Registration Aborted

Following the 2015 elections, GECOM unanimously agreed to conduct another House-to-House Registration, similar to the 2008 exercise. However, budget approval was delayed until 2018, and the 2019 rollout was ultimately derailed by political turmoil and court challenges. Those disruptions, the commissioners said, once again prevented meaningful reform of the voters’ roll. Alexander, Corbin and Trotman concluded that history has repeatedly demonstrated that technical fixes alone will not solve the problem. They reiterated that only decisive legislative action — supported at the highest political level — can restore credibility to Guyana’s electoral database. “A special intervention facilitated through legislative provisions is necessary, and its success can best be assured if piloted and supported by the Attorney General,” the commissioners insisted.

Meanwhile, the commissioners comments come days after GECOM published an advertisement seeking temporary staff for the upcoming local government elections. According to the advertisement placed on the commission’s website, suitably qualified individuals are being sought to fill the role of temporary trainer in preparation for the upcoming local government polls. The advertisement noted under the direct supervision of the chief election officer, (CEO) successful candidates will be responsible for designing and developing training materials specifically tailored for the conduct of LGE, organising and implementing effective training strategies for election staff, evaluating the performance of participants at the conclusion of each training session etc.

Local Government Election is deemed a high priority for citizens, as it stipulates governance and policies at the local democratic or” grass root” level. The elections will pave the way for the appointment of councilors for the 65 Neighborhood Democratic Councils and six municipalities countrywide. Constitutionally, LGE are due every three years. Guyana’s local government election history is marked by significant delays, with the last elections held in 1994, leading to prolonged periods where councils were not renewed, despite constitutional requirements and calls for reform. Local government elections were last held in June 2023.

---

• Charles Corbin, GECOM, GECOM Commissioners, Vincent Alexander, voters' list

---