The Private Sector Com-mission (PSC), Canadian High Commissioner Dr Nicole Giles and Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission Dr Steve Surujbally met last Thursday to discuss the possibilities of using an Automatic Ballot Scan and Tabulation Voting System in local and national elections.
“The use of such a system could enhance the accuracy of vote counts and speed up the delivery of election results,” the PSC said in a press release. The PSC said it was heartened by the information presented and looks forward to the results of a preliminary assessment of the system by Gecom, should the proposed project find acceptance from key stakeholders.
According to the high commissioner, about 60 paper-based, automatic ballot scan and tabulation machines would be donated to Guyana by the DELIAN project; an independent non-profit organisation registered in Canada and the USA. Each machine handles over 1,000 votes per day. These systems, while speeding up the tabulation process, also provide for paper ballots which could be manually tabulated in the event of the need for a recount.
The PSC asserts that such systems could be valuable to Guyana where the current methods associated with the tabulation and the transmission of votes tend to impede the official declaration of results.
