Just under half of the members of the joint services voted in the Local Government Election (LGE) on June 2nd.
According to the Guyana Elections Commission, there was a 47 per cent turnout this year, up from 30 per cent in 2018.
These percentages were taken from all 9,093 ranks who were expected to vote and were provided by GECOM at a press conference on Friday. The main voting is set for tomorrow. For the Guyana Defence Force, some 1,361 ballots were cast from a total of 2,684 registered voters which represents 50.7 per cent
For the Guyana Police Force, a total of 2, 717 persons voted from a total of 5, 979 registered voters, a 45.4 per cent turnout
A total of 239 persons from the Prison Service voted out of a total of 430 voters, representing a 55.5 per cent turnout.
These percentages come against the backdrop of allegations made by Opposition-appointed Commissioner, Vincent Alexander, that some 10 per cent of the voters who turned up could not vote, simply because their names were not on the list.
However, Chief Election Officer Vishnu Persaud, denied such claims.
“There may be cases and I have not received such cases and I’m not aware that the DCEO (Deputy Chief Election Officer), who coordinated this activity at that level would have received a single complaint from any voter, any disciplined services voter that I turn up at X ballot station to vote but my name was not on the list. We have not received any such report.” CEO Persaud said.
The CEO further maintained that all ranks who were eligible to vote were on the list.
“As far as I’m aware, persons who turned up to vote were allowed to vote providing that their names are in the list for the particular ballot station.”
Persaud said that he remains certain of this since GECOM itself had no involvement in the preparation of the list.
“These lists were signed off by persons who are authorised to do so on behalf of the respective forces. The preparation of these lists are done in collaboration with us and I need to explain that we at GECOM will never know where a rank is placed or where a rank is stationed. What we would have is that rank registered in our national register of registrants and by extension the register of voters for the local authority area in which he or she resides.”
The joint services ballots are expected to be tallied in the count of the votes on election day.
