Government-nominated Elections Commissioner Sase Gunraj yesterday detailed instances where former Chief Election Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield disregarded a large number of valid votes as he sought to finalise the results of the March 2, 2020 elections in defiance of directions from both the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and the courts.
Gunraj, who was the lone witness to testify yesterday before the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the elections, said that on the numerous occasions when the commission had requested an accurate report of the recount from Lowenfield, he frequently made excuses and when he finally did present a report, they found that the CEO had invalidated almost half of the valid votes.
According to the documents and statements from Gunraj, which were presented as evidence to the CoI, on April 8th, 2020, the Commission had met with the CEO and he presented a draft plan to them on how long the agreed recount would take. He suggested 156 days. However, that suggested timeline was rejected by a majority of the GECOM commissioners, comprising Gunraj, the late Bibi Shadick, Robeson Benn and GECOM Chair Claudette Singh. As a result, they told Lowenfield to revise his plan and bring a new plan to them by April 14, 2020. However, on that date, he sought clarification on what he was ordered to do. It then resulted in another meeting on April 15 and another meeting followed on April 16, where a decision was finally made that the recount would commence in early May of 2020.
It started on May 6, 2020 and ended on June 9, 2020.
Upon the conclusion of the recount exercise, the commission asked the CEO to produce and present a report. Gunraj said Lowenfield presented a report in which he “stated that he was unable to ascertain that the 2020 general and regional elections, which he oversaw, were impartial and credible…in that report he give a victory to the APNU+AFC coalition and quite interestingly, the margin of victory was even greater than that which was fraudulently declared by Clairmont Mingo.”
According to the Trinidadian Counsel Sophia Chote, who led Gunraj in evidence, the report stated that 60% of valid votes were no longer valid and out of the remainder he apportion 67% to APNU+AFC party, and he further apportion 30.5% of the votes to the PPP/C party. Chote had also stated that the CEO had added in the report that the APNU+AFC had also won the votes in District 6. However, that report was refused by a majority of the Commission.
As a result, GECOM chair Singh then wrote to Lowenfield and ordered him to prepare his report based on the actual results or outcome of the recount and he was given up until June 18, 2020 to submit such.
Although a Commission meeting was scheduled for that date, they were unable to proceed with the meeting due to the absence of two commissioners and the CEO, who did not submit the report.
Subsequently, on June 22, 2020, the Commission eventually received a report of the recount from Lowenfield after a court order was made by the Court of Appeal, but it was in this report where a large number of votes were automatically made invalid.
“In the first report to which I referred, the CEO disregarded almost 300,000 votes. There were about 416,000 odd votes cast in the elections and the CEO’s report to which I previously alluded, he only considered 185,000 odd votes to be valid,” Gunraj contended.
On July 8, 2020, he said, there was a ruling by the Caribbean Court of Justice, which led to the Commission ordering Lowenfield to submit a report reflecting the valid votes counted in the national recount, as per the certificates of recounts generated. He was given July 10 to submit but once again, he showed up empty handed. “…Instead he came to the commission on that said 10th of July 2020 and sought further guidance,” Gunraj noted.
The next day, he said, the commission received a report from the CEO but with the numbers which were declared by former Region Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo in March, 2020.
With this turn of events, the commission finally intervened by deciding to put aside all previous declarations and ordering that the recount figures be used. After Lowenfield failed on two occasions to do so, it not until August 2, 2020, when the CEO submitted the report of the actual and accurate figures of the recount.
‘Expedient’
Gunraj also suggested that Lowenfield’s failure to submit the report using accurate results was due to him going against GECOM’s orders that he only use the Statement of Polls (SOPs) for the tabulation process and instead allowing Mingo to use a spreadsheet.
Gunraj yesterday explained to the CoI that at a meeting in February of 2020, Lowenfield detailed to the persons gathered, including several members of the observer missions, how the tabulation exercise after polls closed would be conducted. “…And at that meeting that CEO detailed… that after polls were closed and the SOPs started to come in to the office of the RO, the RO will then set a time after consultation with the persons who were entitled to be a part of that tabulation process at a convenient time…and then the process would start…he detailed at that meeting as well how the tabulation process would be done…the persons or representatives who were entitled to be present for the purposes of efficiency would be required to have copies of SOPs…the importance of that further is that the RO would be in possession of SOPs as with the persons who are participating in the process [would] be in possession of SOPs and as consequence the tabulation process would entail comparison or SOPs with SOPs.”
However, he said on March 4, 2020, the entire process was disrupted when Information Technology (IT) Officer Enrique Livan was allowed to use a spreadsheet which no one else had received or gotten a chance to see. Mingo, who was overseeing the process, also had no problem with it, he said.
Gunraj said that when he and other commissioners went to complain to Lowenfield about the breach of the correct protocol to use SOPs, they were told by the CEO that the use of spreadsheets was “efficient” and “expedient”.
Gunraj is due to continue his testimony today.
