A clear act of insubordination is how one source has described the report submitted by Chief Election Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield to GECOM on Tuesday in which he erased over 115,000 votes from the March 2nd general elections.
According to Guyana’s electoral laws the CEO is at all times subject to the control of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM). In fact Section 18 of the Elections Law (Amendment) Act of 2000 specifically states that “notwithstanding anything in any written law” the officer remains subject to the “direction and control of the Commission”.
When, Lowenfield on Tuesday submitted to the Commission a report of what he deemed “valid and credible votes” he flouted the clear directives of Chairman of the Commission Justice (ret’d) Claudette Singh to compose his report “using the results of the recount” of votes.
While Singh has remained publicly silent on this action at least one Commissioner has expressed surprise and condemnation of the action.
Opposition-nominated Commissioner Bibi Shadick told Stabroek News on Tuesday the CEO will at the very least have to tell the Commission where he got the numbers from.
Government-nominated Commissioner Desmond Trotman when contacted refused to comment on a document which has not yet been discussed by the Commission.
“I have seen Mr. Lowenfield’s report and I understand that the Caribbean Court Justice (CCJ) has said GECOM cannot act so I’ll wait until the next Commission meeting,” he said.
Another opposition-nominated commissioner, Sase Gunraj also declined to comment on the report but maintained that the CEO is subject at all times to the direction of the Commission.
Asked what action could be taken against an election officer who refuses to act on that direction, Gunraj said there is no security of tenure for the office of CEO.
“The CEO is employed by the Commission which can discipline the officer including suspending or firing him,” he explained.
If Lowenfield is unable to explain the source of his numbers to the Commission he could face more than disciplining from his employer.
According to the Representation of the People Act (ROPA) he could face a fine of 65,000, imprisonment for two years and a five-year ban on participation in an election either as candidate or elector if it can be proven that he falsified this declaration.
Section 137 (i) of the Act specifically notes that if an election officer in any Form, or in any certificate makes any declaration that he has reasonable grounds to believe to be false, in any material respect he is guilty of a misdemeanour.
Five different results
The 2020 General and Regional Elections has so far had five different results which were made public. None of these results correspond.
The first two declarations made using fictitious numbers from Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo were clearly disproved by the results of the National Recount which showed a victory of for the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C). That party on Wednesday applied unsuccessfully to Singh for her to direct Lowenfield to withdraw his latest report.
This report like Mingo’s declaration before it shows a victory for the incumbent APNU+AFC after invalidating almost 25% of the votes cast at the March 2 polls.
It is based on a total of 344,508 votes, which is significantly less than the 460,295 votes that were verified by the Secretariat during the national recount process.
In an attached letter, Lowenfield stated that he had “taken note of the guidance of the Court of Appeal in Eslyn David v CEO et al in the preparation of the report.”
The guidance referenced is the majority ruling issued on Monday that the words “more votes are cast” as per Article 177 (2) (b) of the Constitution of Guyana should be interpreted to mean “more valid votes are cast”. This Order had been stayed at the time of the CEO submission and remains subject to an injunction from the Caribbean Court of Justice.
It is unclear how Lowenfield determined the count but he has maintained that it is in accordance with Section 96 of the Representation of the People Act.
This section prescribes that the CEO shall, after calculating the total number of valid votes of electors which have been cast for each list of candidates, prepare a report manually and in electronic form for the Commission to declare and publish the election results.
The recount results had been certified by GECOM’s Secretariat. They show that the PPP/C’s list of candidates has secured 233,336 votes compared to the 217,920 garnered by the incumbent APNU+AFC coalition. Under that count, the PPP/C has won the March 2 General Elections by 15,416 votes. Based on the figures, the PPP/C would have 33 seats in the new Parliament, the incumbent APNU+AFC, 31, and list of LJP, ANUG and TNM would share one seat.
In this report the CEO has inexplicably lowered the valid vote count in each Electoral District. In District One 3,406 votes have been invalidated by Lowenfield, 13,296 in District Two, 22,592 in District Three, 40,597 in District Four, 12,338 in District Five 4,827 in District Six, 6,226 in District Seven, 2,107 in District Eight, 8,265 in District Nine and 2,136 in District 10.
Across all Districts a total of 115,787 electors have had their votes invalidated by the unilateral decision of the CEO.
The new submission also shows an APNU+AFC victory as it reports a total of 171,825 votes cast for the APNU+AFC compared to 166,343 for the PPP/C and 3,348 for a joinder list of new parties. As a result, with an electoral quota of 5,300, the coalition would be awarded 33 seats, the PPP/C 31 seats, and the joint list would get one seat.
Notably it does not align with the numbers submitted by Lowenfield more than a week ago.
As part of his summary of the observation reports generated during the recount, the CEO had previously declared that across all Electoral Districts only 185,260 votes cast could be considered valid. Of the number of votes deemed valid by Lowenfield in that report the majority was cast in favour of the incumbent as the alternative count grants the coalition 125,010 votes and the PPP/C 56,628.
Observers have pointed out that no evidence has been provided by Lowenfield or anyone else to justify the discarding of votes. Furthermore, they say he has no such authority.
