GECOM suspends Continuous Registration Exercise to prepare Register of Voters for Local Government Elections

– Extends Objections period

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) decided at its statutory meeting held on Wednesday, 22nd February 2023 to suspend the Cycle of Continuous Registration with effect from 24th February 2023 until further notice. The exercise commenced on 3rd January 2023 and was scheduled to conclude on 31st May 2023. However, this decision was necessary to facilitate the inclusion of all eligible persons who have registered thus far, under Continuous Registration, in the respective Registers of Voters (RoV) for the upcoming Local Government Elections.

The deliberations at the level of the Commission, and ultimately the decision to suspend the registration exercise, were premised on a proposal and advice submitted by the Chief Election Officer, Mr. Vishnu Persaud to ensure the inclusion of all eligible persons in the final Registers of Voters. For the sake of clarity, it must be noted that in order to facilitate the inclusion of those persons in the RoV, the Agency would have to compile supplementary lists by constituency and post them for public scrutiny.

Acknowledging the need to allow persons to properly scrutinize the supplementary lists with those names, the Commission decided to extend the duration of the objections aspect of the Claims and Objections exercise until 2nd March 2023. Persons are therefore encouraged to scrutinize the supplementary lists posted in each Constituency/Local Authority Area (LAA) and to object to the inclusion of the name(s) of any person whom they suspect may not be eligible for inclusion in the list.