“Numerous mistakes” were made and “incorrect” numbers called out in the tabulation and verification of votes for Region Four during the 2020 elections after Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Information Technology officer, Enrique Livan took over the process.
“Within a very short period of time we realized that numerous mistakes were being made…..The numbers they were calling out did not correspond with what counting agents had,” local activist, Jonathan Yearwood yesterday told the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the 2020 elections.
This led to local as well as international observers being threatened and verbally abused by APNU+AFC representative, Carol Smith-Joseph, who he said was in a “nasty” mood.
Yearwood is the third witness to testify under oath before the CoI which is being chaired by retired Justice, Stanley John. When he took the stand yesterday morning, Yearwood provided a detailed account of the events at the GECOM Command Centre which was housed at the Ashmins building at High and Hadfield streets.
Most of Yearwood’s testimony, which took up the majority of yesterday’s public hearing focused on the tabulation and verification of Region Four votes. Yearwood who is a former executive member of A New and United Guyana (ANUG) was a representative of the party during the elections.
He said the process took a turn for the worse after the then Chief Election Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield replaced two GECOM staff, who were complaining of being tired with Livan and another male employee.
According to Yearwood, on March 4, 2020, he went to Ashmins building to relieve an ANUG counting agent of his duties. Shortly after, he said the verification process started. “They started to go through their process which was to call out the numbers of Statements of Polls in chronological order which started at 4001…Then they moved to 4001 to 4002 then they moved to 4003,” he told the CoI.
At the time, he said the Deputy Returning Officer and another female was present. One of the women was pregnant and they were complaining of being tired and wanting to get something to eat. This caused the process to come to a halt at around 9.30 pm with just 33 Statements of Poll verified.
The process continued into the wee hours the following morning after Livan and another GECOM staff took over. However, within a “short” period of time, he said party agents and observers realised that the numbers of votes cast were not corresponding with the SOPs.
As such, they began to protest and although they raised it with Livan, no corrections were made. “Because earlier everything was going ok and now, we are getting large amounts of mistakes,” Yearwood said.
He said party agents were not allowed to see the actual documents that Livan and his colleague were reading from. “We saw he had a document in his hand that appeared to be a Statement of Poll. Whether he had a paper in front of that we don’t know but what we do know is that numbers he was calling out did not correspond,” he told Senior Counsel Sophia Chote, who is the lead counsel in the inquiry.
Objections
According to Yearwood, even though agents from the various parties present including the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) and ANUG continued to object to the number of votes announced, Livan and his colleague ignored them.
“Every Statement of Poll that Mr Livan was attempting to verify had mistakes of which we had objections,” Yearwood said.
Around 2 am, Yearwood said the party agents became very “ferocious” in their objections and in return, Livan and the other GECOM staff left the room with a computer and flash drive. “I saw him (Livan) take the flash drive from the laptop on the desk,” he recalled while noting that the flash drive was in a computer Livan’s colleague was using to record the data during the process.
Upon learning of this, Yearwood told the CoI that he and other party agents left the tabulation room and went into another room where Livan and his colleague had gone. When he got there, he said three other persons were in the room. Livan appeared to have been working on “some document”, Yearwood said. “I asked him what he was doing with a flash drive….after he had told us that he was tired and couldn’t work any longer,” Yearwood said.
He said Livan denied that he was doing “anything wrong”.
The Chairman and other Commis-sioners sought frequent clarification from Yearwood about his testimony. More than twice, he had to be given his statement to “refresh” his memory and was reminded of his right to ask for such if the need arose.
The police were subsequently summoned and in the presence of Lowenfield, Yearwood said Assistant Commissioner of Police, Edgar Thomas who was then the Commander of Region Four said that should the matter become a police investigation, the tabulation and verification process would be delayed.
“He (Thomas) was saying if it became a police investigation and if the police laid hands on the flash drive, nothing further could be done until the police investigation is completed and that would delay the tabulation process,” Yearwood related.
After much “back-and-forth”, Yearwood told the CoI that the process eventually recommenced but there were still discrepancies in the numbers. “When he plug in the flash drive it was not where we left off…We were working on the East Bank area…South Georgetown came up,” he said.
Photographs of documents which were taken by Yearwood at the time when the process was halted and recommence were presented before the inquiry and admitted as evidence.
However, one of the documents was closely scrutinized by Commissioner, Justice Godfrey Smith; in his bid to determine what exactly the document was.
At this point, the smiling Yearwood told the CoI that many of the party agents enquired from Lowenfield what was going on and he said he would try to find out.
Livan was also asked about the reason/s for the discrepancy by “multiple” party agents, Yearwood said. “…..Mr Livan was asked where was the East Bank file and he said he could not find it,” he said.
It was then that Lowenfield took a decision to stop the process with the promise to recommence at 9am the following day. “I asked for a printout of everything we had done so far so as to ensure that when we start later in the morning, we have documentation of where we ended,” Yearwood said.
The documents were provided, he said.
A hoax
However, the following morning, the process did not continue as planned. Instead, Yearwood recalled that attempts were made to clear the building. “I believe that it was a hoax. It was an effort to clear the building so that something could be done by GECOM. I was very suspicious of everything happening at that point,” he said.
Despite this, Yearwood said he along with observers remained in the building and a number of APNU+AFC members, who were then ministers of Government began to arrive.
With the process still to be completed, Yearwood told the CoI that later that day, Region Four Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo made two attempts to declare the results for the region using doctored figures.
“He (Mingo) went to the head table and he attempted to make what I would consider a declaration of the Region 4 district,” he said. According to Yearwood, all of the non-APNU+AFC party representatives who were present “shouted down” the declaration.
After being delayed for days, the process recommenced on March 12, 2020 following a ruling by Chief Justice (ag), Roxane George that the March 5th declaration of results by Mingo was null and void and Mingo was bound by the court to return to the verification process to allow observers and party agents to witness the tabulation of votes.
Even though objections were made again, Yearwood recalled that Mingo did “nothing at all”. Instead, a second declaration was made on the night of March 13th which showed for a second time that the APNU+AFC coalition won the region.
According to their Terms of Reference, the Commissioners are to inquire into and report upon the relevant circumstances and events leading up to, and the procedures following the Regional and General Elections held in Guyana on the 2nd day of March 2020. The investigation is not limited to, but includes the counting, ascertainment and tabulation of votes polled and the public declaration of those results by the Returning Officer of Electoral District No. 4 and other election officers, as prescribed by the Representation of the People Act. The three Commissioners will also examine what attempts, if any, were made to obstruct, frustrate, subvert and prevent the counting, ascertainment and tabulation of votes polled and a declaration of the true results of Electoral District No. 4 as prescribed by the law, and by whom.
Nasty mood
Before the second declaration was made, Yearwood related that he along with other party agents returned to the Ashmins building around 9am on March 13, 2020. He said while Mingo was present, the setting was different since a different room was being used to carry out the process.
“…He allowed the observers in, the party agents in, had us all sit down and he checked off the local and foreign observers and then he turned to the party agents and said none of us was accredited to be there but using his discretion as the Returning Officer he would allow us to witness the tabulation. He also said he would not allow any noise, objection or whatever…..If we do, he will ask us to leave,” Yearwood detailed to the CoI.
According to Yearwood, Mingo made it clear to him and others that it is not a verification process but tabulations of SOPs. “…..He (Mingo) said he had tabulated the statement of polls already that he would use to inform us what the count actually was,” he said.
A few minutes after, Yearwood said the verification process restarted from Ballot Box 4041. “As the verification process started at 4041, very quickly I realized that their figures they were calling out were not the same figures we had,” he recalled.
This saw objections from “most” party agents during which Smith-Joseph became “very” vocal and threatened observers. “She threatened to stomp Ms Pauline Chase from the Bar Association and…..to spit in Mr Kit Nascimento, the Private Sector observer face…She was in a very nasty mood,” Yearwood told the CoI.
After a while, Yearwood said he left the building where he encountered members of the media, who he engaged. During the process, he said there were “numerous” APNU+AFC supporters a corner away from the barricade. “After listening to what I was telling the press, they started to pelt me with plastic bottles,” he said.
While the police were around, Yearwood said they did not intervene.
Projector screen
Minutes before 1 pm the said day, Yearwood returned to the building when he learnt that the tabulation and verification was suspended and would resume later afternoon in the yard of GECOM’s Kingston, Georgetown office.
“He (Mingo) explained to us what the process would be in that they would take Statements of Poll and put it to a projector screen which would then be projected on what was supposed to be a screen and once we all saw that he would then show us the Statements of Poll,” Yearwood explained.
The “supposed” screen being referred to turned out to be a white bedsheet, Yearwood said. “It was just nailed or taped up to the wall,” he noted.
Before the process started, Yearwood told the CoI that a European Union (EU) observer went to the screen to see how the process would function but was asked to return to his seat by Mingo. “He (observer) was chased away by Mr Mingo. He told him to get back to his seat. That he wasn’t allowed near the projector,” he said.
At this point, Yearwood said a large number of “heavily” armed police officers arrived at the area to prevent any interference that might obstruct the process which began around 4.48 pm with Ballot Box 4791. “….The figures that we were hearing were not necessarily the figures that we recorded…The numbers for the smaller political parties were correct but the differences came from the two big political parties,” he further related.
Upon realizing that the process was going to be done in the same “nonsensical” manner, Yearwood said he told Mingo if Guyana erupts in violence he would be the sole cause of it.
Yearwood said this resulted in Smith-Joseph, who was an APNU+AFC counting agent then “rushing up” to him. “When she rushed at me, I remembered everything she had done and threatened to do. I defended myself and I pushed her away,” he told retired Justice John.
In protest, Yearwood said he left the location and was arrested during the process. He said he was taken to the Brickdam Police Station and was subsequently released.
The continued delay in the verification and tabulation process was only sorted after a National Recount which lasted for more than a month. That recount showed the PPP/C as victorious.
The CoI is set to continue this morning.
