Assistant Registration Officer of GECOM, Alexandra Sophia Bowman yesterday said she was instructed to use a spreadsheet instead of Statements of Poll (SoPs) during the tabulation of votes cast in District Four for the March 2020 General and Regional Elections.
“When was my turn, I was instructed that we won’t be calling from the SoPs anymore. We would be calling from the spreadsheet,” Bowman told the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the March 2020 elections yesterday morning.
Asked who gave the instructions, Bowman told Senior Counsel Sophia Chote, who is leading evidence in the inquiry that while she could not remember directly it was either Region Four Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo or his clerk, Michelle Miller.
According to Bowman, on March 4, 2020, she went to Mingo’s office which was situated in Ashmins Building at High and Hadfield Streets where she waited until it was time for her to verify votes for the Upper East Bank sub-district- the area to which she was assigned.
When the time arrived, Bowman told the CoI that she received the instructions to use the spreadsheet instead of the SoPs and she adhered. “They told us that we needed to call from the spreadsheet and that they wanted to make it transparent so I recommended that we use a projector to get the numbers up on the wall so that the parties could follow along,” she recalled.
According to Bowman, two projectors were secured but the display was poor. “Neither of them was showing brightly enough on the wall because they didn’t had a screen. So we were trying to get it on the wall but they weren’t working properly,” she said.
At this time, Bowman told the CoI that the envelopes in which the SoPs had arrived were at the back of the office. Most of the envelopes, she said appeared to have been already opened.
Bowman said a number of persons including party agents, Miller and GECOM Information Technology (IT) officer, Enrique Livan were also in the room.
Upon being instructed to use the spreadsheet, Bowman recalled that she asked for an electronic copy which was eventually given to her after she provided Livan with a flash drive.
When she started to call out the numbers, Bowman told the CoI there were objections from members of the PPP/C party who said that the numbers did not correspond with those on the SoPs. “There was just back and forth and a lot of noise between the party persons and persons from the other party – APNU+AFC,” she said.
In response to a question from Chote, Bowen said she could not say whether the numbers on the spreadsheet corresponded with those on the SoPs since she was not allowed to compare them.
But although objections were raised in more than one instance, Bowen told the CoI which is chaired by retired Justice, Stanley John that Miller instructed her to “keep calling”. “There was a lot of noise and I was seven months pregnant at the time and I just wanted to get it over with,” she told the inquiry.
At this point, Bowman said there was another uproar in the tabulation room. “I don’t know if they were about to fight or they were just arguing with one another but they were just pushing and moving stuff from where I was,” she recalled.
During the process, Bowman said someone pushed a table and hurt her leg. This resulted in someone summoning Deputy Chief Election Officer, Roxanne Myers to the tabulation room and upon her arrival, Bowman said Myers asked her if she was okay. “I told her ‘no’. She (Myers) sent and called the Chairman (retired Justice Claudette Singh) and she came down. She also came to me and asked me if I was okay to continue and I told her no,” Bowman said.
Upon receiving permission, Bowman said she left and went home.
The following day, she said she went to the doctor who recommended bed rest. As such, she said she did not return to work for the remainder of the electoral process.
Chote enquired from Bowman if anyone asked her afterwards about what had occurred that evening and she responded in the negative.
However, Bowen pointed out that she resumed work some eight months after and she called the Chief Election Officer’s (CEO’s) office requesting that her flash drive be returned to her.
Bowman said Duarte Hetsberger, the personal assistant to the former CEO, Keith Lowenfield told her that wouldn’t possible. “He told me no. It’s evidence now,” Bowman recalled.
As such, Bowman said the flash drive along with some stationery items she had left behind were never returned to her.
