While he believes that electronic voting makes for faster tabulation and possible result declarations, Guyana’s current ballot box counting system seems hard to manipulate, former United States Ambassador to Guyana, Perry Holloway, says.
“Every system has its flaws but at the actual box, it seems to me, very, very hard to commit any significant fraud. Yeah, can one guy do something? But I mean like tens of thousands of votes?” Holloway said in an interview with reporters before leaving Guyana.
“I mean there could be other places where the system is weaker, you’d have to talk to some of the experts, but I was very impressed with the sanctity of the box there at the polling stand. What happens before or after, that’s probably areas we may have to be more vigilant and I’m sure they are,” he added.
An observer of two Local Government Elections (LGEs) during his three-year tour of duty here, Holloway shared an experience of observing counting at the end of voting.
“I observed one centre at the first local government elections and I think, I observed the counting, I was not counting, I think they counted those votes 12 times and every time, it was the same number. It would never change. So why are we counting…we had 100 this time and 101 that time. I guess someone didn’t like the results and they wanted to be sure and I can understand counting two or three times, you do wanna be sure that every vote counts,” he said.
Notwithstanding, the former US Ambassador made clear that he is a supporter of electronic voting although he admitted that given the logistics of Guyana and the lack of internet access in remote areas, it might be a while before it can be fully implemented here.
The former US envoy said that a decision on which voting medium should be used would have to be a decision of the Guyanese people and if government could not afford it on its own, it could pursue financial support from international organisations and countries.
The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) was credited for quicker declaration of results at the last LGE as compared to the one in 2016.
“I can tell you having observed two local government elections here, I’m still a big believer that electronic tabulation can go a long way towards getting the results quicker. Though I have to admit, this last local government elections – the results were pretty timely and kudos to GECOM and everybody who worked so hard to make that happen but it would be nice to be able to almost have near or as close as to instantaneous as you could…,” he said.
“I think electronic tabulation goes a long way towards that and I think it’s a way to ease in the greater electronic voting. Maybe full electronic voting might be a little difficult because of the lack of internet concentration in the whole country and things like that, but the tabulation I think is very doable and I think it’s a way to get started. I mean the government certainly could either pursue that on their own, using their own money or they can talk to some of the different international organisations and bilateral countries and possibly get some assistance on that,” he added.
Holloway also related that he has heard many complaints from observers and voters that the two-day wait for the results of the 2015 General Elections was agonising.
“My understanding is that national elections, talking to people that did observe it and talking to Guyanese who lived it, it two took two days and even then, there were still some doubts,” he said.
