The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) is updating the recently published Revised List of Electors (RLE) to reflect changes in addresses and other information of some persons, a move that the opposition PPP/C has dubbed “illegal” but GECOM says the law caters for this to be done.
GECOM’s Public Relations Officer Yolanda Ward, when contacted by Stabroek News, confirmed that some registrants’ information is being updated. She explained that from the recent truncated House-to-House (HtH) registration exercise, there were a number of registrants who had made changes to their addresses and names. GECOM has since discovered that a number of those changes were not updated in the system and Ward said that “it is important for us to have those changes made.”
In a subsequent statement, GECOM said that with the publication of the RLE, it was recognised that a number of eligible electors whose addresses and other information were updated during the HtH exercise were not reflected on the RLE. “In this regard, an administrative process is being conducted to ensure that electors are placed within their correct divisions for voting. Failure to conduct this necessary exercise may very well result in electors being displaced and unable to vote at a polling station in their area,” the statement said.
Ward noted that under the law, the Chief Election Officer is allowed to make changes to information. “The law provides that we use the most recent registration record,” she said, adding that this record would be the list generated from the HtH registration exercise.
Section 24 of Local Authorities (Elections) Act provides that, ”If at any time after the register of voters for the local authority area has come into force under section 23 the Elections Commission is satisfied that the name of any person whose name was included in the preliminary list or a supplementary list prior to correction by the electoral registrar under section 22 has through inadvertence been omitted from that register of voters, the Elections Commission shall instruct the Chief Election Officer to insert in the register the name and other particulars of the person concerned, initial the correction and notify the person of the insertion.”
Ward emphasised that if someone on the Preliminary List of Electors (PLE) was listed as living in Region One but updated their information during the HtH registration and is now living in Region Four, it is incumbent upon GECOM to have that information updated since the registrant would have had a transaction with the commission.
The GECOM official maintained that it is all being done legally and emphasised that the 21-day period before the Official List of Electors (OLE) is published allows for corrections to be done once they realise that the omission was some kind of inadvertence on GECOM’s part.
It is not clear how many persons have been affected but at least two Stabroek News employees and their relatives who moved from their previous registration area since the last general election, indicated yesterday that in the recently published RLE, their addresses remained unchanged even though they had updated the changes in addresses during the recent HtH exercise. Other persons have also reported the same issue.
GECOM had procrastinated for weeks on what to do with the data gathered from the controversial HtH.
Labelled
Meantime, the PPP has labelled the changes being made by GECOM “illegal.” PPP-nominated GECOM Commissioner Sase Gunraj claimed that the changes that are being made to the list can possibly affect tens of thousands of electors. He did not explain how he arrived at this number.
“Only changes that are contemplated by law, the law caters that where there is inadvertence, that is the word used, there is where changes should be made,” Gunraj told Stabroek News yesterday.
He said that the opposition got wind of the move to update the information of registrants overnight on Tuesday and they are very concerned.
In a statement, the PPP claimed that GECOM is making changes to the National Register of Registrants (NRR) using unverified information generated from the truncated HtH registration exercise.
“This information is not only replete with errors, but was never subjected to the legal requirement of a Claims and Objections Process. The PPP, by way of a compromise, only agreed to add new verified registrants to the Revised List of Electors,” the party said.
It described the changes, which it labelled as “tampering”, as not only “unlawful” but argued that it is “intended to cause chaos and confusion on elections day by facilitating duplicate voting, permitting unqualified persons to vote and preventing qualified persons from voting.”
“So for example, if a person’s name or address is changed on the NRR, it is that change that will appear in the Official List of Electors (OLE), which in turn will require the voter to vote at a different location from where he/she is residing, or being prevented from voting altogether,” according to the PPP.
The party called upon GECOM’s Chair, retired Justice Claudette Singh to put an immediate end to “this illegal course of action” and for the international community to pay keen attention to the matter.
In its statement, GECOM said that the accusations by the PPP/C are baseless and designed to cause confusion in the public domain particularly as it relates to the administrative and operational procedures of the Secretariat in the preparation and production of the list. The statement noted that GECOM has said on several occasions that the data garnered from the HtH registration exercise would be used in the preparation of the list for General and Regional Elections.
“Chairperson Justice Claudette Singh has emphasised on several occasions the ruling of the Chief Justice that the House-to-House process was lawful and not unconstitutional and therefore the data garnered from such process must also be lawful and not unconstitutional,” the statement said.
It noted that the RLE has been posted for public scrutiny and urged electors to check and verify their information at locations in their respective areas or on the GECOM’s website. If there has been any [inadvertence] on the part of GECOM, electors are advised to immediately visit the GECOM Registration office to have the information updated accordingly, the statement said.
“Free, fair and transparent processes in the production of a credible list is the hallmark of credible elections. GECOM will ensure that the name of every registered eligible elector is properly accounted for on the Official List of Electors. GECOM is therefore urging the citizenry not to give any credence to false information in the public domain and wishes to assure the electorate that every endeavour will be made by GECOM to deliver credible elections,” the statement added.
