CEO’s report indicates that elections lacked impartiality and fairness
—Hundreds of irregularities discovered
—Thousands of votes affected
DPI, Guyana, Saturday, June 13, 2020
The report submitted by the Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield has indicated that the March 2 General and Regional Elections lacked impartiality and fairness.
The CEO’s report which was presented to the Guyana Elections Commission Justice (retd) Claudette Singh, contains a tabulation of the recount of the ten Electoral Districts together with a summary of the observation reports for each District.
GECOM Chief Election Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield.
The observations reports submitted show that there were hundreds of irregularities in each electoral district which in turn affected thousands of votes for all parties involved in the elections.
These irregularities ranged from missing certificates of employment and oaths of identity that are required by electors voting without ID cards. Instances of electors voting with oaths of identity but were not listed on the OLE and cases where some ballot boxes were found with extra ballots or without the requite documentation.
Additionally, the thousands of other allegations highlighted by the A Partnership for National Unity and the Alliance for Change coalition were substantiated in the report by the CEO.
Those allegations included thousands of dead persons voting and persons voting who were out of the jurisdiction voting.
“In respect of the allegations of voter impersonation, responses from the Chief Immigration Officer and review of the General Registrar’s Office Deceased Reports confirmed that these were of substance,” the report stated.
Further, based on the anomalies and instances of voter impersonation identified it was noted at the end of every report for each district that the election “does not appear to satisfy the criteria of impartiality, fairness, and compliance with provisions of the Constitution and the ROPA Cap 1:03. Consequently, on the basis of the votes counted and the information furnished from the recount, it cannot be ascertained that the results in this District meet the standard of fair and credible elections.”
On Friday, His Excellency David Granger during an appearance on the radio show Straight Up had noted that there were too many anomalies to be ignored.
“That is the reason for the recount, that is the reason why CARICOM is here, that is the reason we have had to wait over 100 days to get a report. We will continue to wait, we are patient because democracy must not be rushed, the people must be satisfied that the outcome is not fraudulent,” the Head of State underscored.
The submission of the report concludes the second phase of the recount process. The report will now be reviewed by the Chairperson, CEO and Commissions. That will be followed by a declaration of the results after the Chairperson has studied the report.