GECOM agrees to give Opposition list of changes made to voters’ list

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has agreed to provide Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo with all updates made to the voters’ list using data from the July-August house-to-house registration exercise.

Jagdeo, at his last press conference, declared that if the PPP cannot stop GECOM from using the information, they must be given an opportunity to verify every change made.

GECOM is currently updating the names and addresses of persons who have changed their information during the controversial exercise even though some of those persons were not found at the addresses when GECOM conducted a verification process recently.

The Commission’s chairperson, Justice (ret’d) Claudette Singh, has argued that updating the information will ensure no one is disenfranchised.

According to GECOM Commissioner Robeson Benn, the list of changes made by GECOM will be provided on Wednesday.

Benn, an opposition nominated commissioner, is alleging that some 90,000 changes were made.

“We said those persons should be identified – the full list of all new persons who would be posted to the final voters’ list – that we should have a listing of those persons.

“We were promised that perhaps tomorrow (Wednesday) we will get those listings,” he said.

The Opposition nominated commissioners also want the names with changes to be published in the daily newspapers.

“We have said advertisements should be placed in the national newspapers listing those persons by name, ID numbers and addresses as in a means of bringing somewhat of a closure to the issue of persons who were never gotten to, in a verification process, so that the public and stakeholders are advised as to what is off with respect to these names because there is a lot of suspicions.”

Government-nominated Commissioner Vincent Alexander believes the Opposition’s move is a waste of time.

“I think they are wasting our time. Simply speaking, these persons have been duly registered in a legitimate registration exercise and the opposition keeps calling for information that cannot be acted upon because there is no basis to act on that information,” he told reported.

He noted that in cases where the persons were not found, there was nowhere to determine whether they have travelled overseas or to another part of the country.

Additionally, the printing of ballots has begun in Alberta, Canada. The process is being witnessed by Commissioners Sase Gunraj and Charles Corbin.