Summary Statement of Recount Report:
The Guyana Elections Commission’s (GECOM) national recount exercise commenced on May 6, 2020, after the Order appeared in a special edition of the Official Gazette on May 4, at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre (ACCC), where the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce & Industry (GCCI), an accredited Local Observer, collaborated with other accredited Local Observers to observe the exercise. This was done in light of COVID-19 and the restrictions placed on the number of local observers who could be in a station at once.
The GCCI, through this collaborative effort, was able to have information from 100% of the workstations from the beginning to the end of the recount exercise. Altogether, the GCCI’s Observation team was diverse, representing different ethnic groups and genders. Observers, operated within the parameters of the Terms of Reference for Observers and the Gazetted Order for the Recount. In so doing, Observers looked for compliance with the established legal provisions and GECOM’s policy decisions. The Observers also looked for professionalism, efficiency, courtesy, alacrity, inclusivity, accountability, transparency and credibility throughout the entire recount. The Observers looked for political intrusion and interference and administrative humbug. Observers also looked at the security arrangements and the role of the police. The Observers also looked at the frequency and manner in which pertinent information was provided to the media by GECOM.
As per the Order, generally a pattern was established, where a ballot box would be taken from the container it was stored in, escorted by Party Agents and Police, enter the workstation and be handed over to GECOM’s Supervisory Staff, opened in front of Party Counting Agents and Observers, then the serial number of the locks would be read off and recorded. Each folder would then be opened and the contents examined. In the first 3 weeks all the folders were opened, after the first 3 weeks a decision was taken to speed up the process by opening only the folders that contained the Counterfoils, Tendered Ballots, Folios, Poll Books and Ballots (including Spoiled, Rejected and Valid Cast for a Party, with each Party having its own Envelope as per GECOM Standard Operating Procedures.
After the contents were examined, the Counting Clerks began to Count each ballot, audibly, so that the live audio broadcast audience could hear and follow along. Once the Count was completed, a Statement of Recount was prepared, along with a Ballot Box Checklist, and an Observation Report, all of which the Party Counting Agents were asked, but not required, to sign. Copies of this Statement of Recount were prepared for GECOM Secretariat, GECOM’s Tabulation Personnel, the CARICOM Observers and the Political Parties. GECOM’s Tabulation Personnel then carried out a Tabulation
exercise every afternoon from 5 – 6:30pm to produce a Total of Valid Votes Cast for Each Region for the Recount.
There are a few anomalies that GCCI’s Observers observed out of the recount process itself:
● Checking of unnecessary information: It became a matter of solicitude as there was a common observation by all members of the observer team, that Counting Agents of the APNU/AFC queried quite a number of serial numbers that they wished to be checked by the Supervisor of each workstation. The supervisor in return, indicated whether those serial numbers were ticked on the OLE or not. It must be noted that the Local Observers asked in several instances whether they could view the Marked Lists to confirm the ticks but that was denied. This was sometimes time-consuming and very frustrating, particularly in cases, where some of the APNU/AFC Counting Agents queried serial numbers not on the OLE for that station. During this exercise, the Counting Agents of the APNU/AFC made innumerable allegations that the serial numbers they called represented people they thought were out of the jurisdiction on E-day, or were deceased individuals. These objections were recorded on the Observations Report as was agreed in the Basket of Issues. Similarly, objections to APNU/AFC’s claims by other Parties were also recorded in the Observation Reports.
● Unmatched/Missing Documents: In each ballot box, there were a number of envelopes ranging from Forms No. 1-19 with unique descriptions of those envelopes. In rare cases, the number of used counterfoils did not correspond with the marked lists and in other cases, there were some envelopes not accounted for at the time. There were also cases, where ballots of another party were found amongst the ballots of another. In these cases, the ballots were retrieved and recorded for as belonging to the party it was meant to be allocated to. These issues were addressed by the Co-coordinators of the Recount and a way to move forward was established for each case. The most significant incidents were the 47 ballot boxes from the East Coast of Demerara in District 4 that did not have the statutory documents. The GCCI notes that this district is under the control of Returning Office Clairmont Mingo who was a defendant in legal action in the High Court, and subject to Contempt of Court Proceedings due to his earlier District 4 declaration.
● There were a number of cases where the validity of a number of votes were questioned. This incertitude was as a result of supposedly stained ballots, partial marks with complete full marks whereby the full mark was placed at a party and using pen instead of a pencil to mark one’s vote. This issue was inscribed in the basket of issues, which indicated that a vote is to be considered valid once the intent of the voter was clear. The only exception to this rule was one where a tick or an X or any other indicators were placed for more than one of the political parties. This indicated that the voter’s intention was unclear. The Private sector notes that there were many cases where once rejected votes were now considered valid after the Basket of Issues were deliberated upon and approved.
● Denied Request for the Increase of work stations The Private Sector Commission and The Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry, noted the request of the Elections Commission on May 13th, 2020 which was denied by the National COVID-19 Task Force on May 28th, 2020 for the installation and operation of additional workstations at the site of the recount exercise; the Arthur Chung Conference Centre. The intention of this request was very clear as it aimed to expedite the recount process after nine days of observing a slow, and decelerated recount.
Overall, the Recount was approached with extreme professionalism, all stations commenced recounting of the ballots in a very punctual manner and also concluded counting for each day in a timely manner. It was also noted that members of the CARICOM Observer Mission and the Organization of American States (OAS) were present at several workstations, rotating in and out of each of the workstations.
With regards to the major contention that appeared in the headlines and was a bone of contention amongst the Political Parties, the objections made by APNU+AFC agents that based on the ‘fieldwork of the APNU’ that the voters had fraudulently impersonated someone who had either died or migrated, the GCCI’s Observers initially asked to visually confirm that the serial numbers listed as being ticked were in fact ticked, but this request was denied, therefore the GCCI cannot confirm that the serial numbers listed as ticked, indeed were ticked, in fact none of the Political Parties visually confirmed which serial numbers were ticked and which serial numbers were not ticked, therefore this information is questionable and cannot be used to form any opinion without further investigation.
Finally, the GCCI commends the Guyana Elections Commission as it chose to apply the rule of law ensuring that the March 2, Elections can be declared a free, fair and credible one, especially given the controversy surrounding the District 4 Declaration made by Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo.
