Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday reiterated that his party is willing to support a strengthening of polling day measures as a means to prevent voter fraud.
Speaking at his weekly press conference, Jagdeo stressed that all the measures proposed by the governing coalition including House to House registration are likely to disenfranchise some members of Guyanese society and open the results of the 2020 elections to challenge via an elections petition.
He cited a recently announced measure to remove in excess of 25,000 names from the Official List of Electors if these persons do not collect their Identification Card (ID Card).
“The law does not provide for persons who have not collected ID cards to lose the right to vote,” he stressed adding neither House to House nor Claims and Objections is needed to remove dead people from the list and residency is not a requirement for being eligible to vote.
Jagdeo said that the GECOM secretariat can remove the dead from the OLE by applying to the General Registrar’s Office (GRO) for the death certificates issued within the last few years.
He further noted that a strengthening of voting day protocols can be used to avoid “dead persons voting” or other forms of voter fraud.
He said that he has suggested to GECOM, the Carter Center and President David Granger that the various parties could pay for more polling agents or the commission could institute ID card recognition software or place cameras in the polling stations to makes sure dead persons are not voting.
Jagdeo went on to say that his party has already seen one elections vitiated after the PNCR backtracked on an election measure.
“In 1996 we passed legislation with the support of the PNCR. Then after the elections we have [an] Esther Perreira ,” he said in reference to the 1997 elections petition which saw Justice Claudette Singh ruling that no ID Card is needed to vote.
GECOM last week said that persons could be excluded from the voters’ list if they do not uplift their national identification cards, some of which have been sitting uncollected since 2008 but appears to have offered a compromise to mitigate possible legal challenges.
Sources have told Stabroek News that an order drafted at the commission provides that on elections day persons “would be allowed to vote provided your identification is verified by producing any of the several documents including a Guyana Birth Certificate, a certificate of registration, a valid Guyana passport, a naturalization certificate or an adoption certificate”.
The names will however still be published for 21 days in the four national newspapers. Additionally, GECOM intends to send notices directly to the addresses of record for such persons. If a person is able to contact the commission before the expiration of the 21-day period their names will remain on the OLE.
