After several weeks of assessing Statements of Poll (SoPs) handed over by GECOM, APNU on December 30, 2011 wrote elections commission Chairman Dr Steve Surujbally saying that it needed access to the original hard copies for further verification.
Following the November 28 general elections, APNU had declared that it needed to verify that the SoPs in the possession of its polling agents were the ones that the Guyana Elections Commission had used in its tabulation of votes. After a protest in which several APNU protesters were shot with rubber bullets by police, GECOM at a meeting on December 6 agreed to hand over electronic copies of the SoPs to political parties.
In the letter on December 30 to Surujbally and released to the media today, A Partnership for National Unity, Election Agent, Joseph Harmon said that the party had now had an opportunity to conduct a verification based on a comparison of the SoPs on GECOM’s CD and those in the possession of APNU’s polling agents.
“After a full and careful examination, we have found it impossible to reconcile the two sets of SoPs since in a significant number of instances the SoPs are not identical, which, you will concede, they ought to be. Consequently we are renewing our original request to access the original hard copies of the SoPs in GECOM’s possession”, APNU said.
Harmon said it was APNU’s understanding that Surujbally had expressed a willingness to provide a space at GECOM’s premises to enable the coalition to carry out a further verification “this time with the hard copies, your and ours” and asked for a response as soon as possible.
GECOM has said it was not bound by law to supply the SoPs to political parties. Party agents at polling stations on election day would have been given a copy of the SoPs that GECOM has in its possession.
