GECOM keen on sticking to five-day timeline for new verification exercise

It is critical that the verification of new registrants recorded during the house-to-house exercise stick within its five-day limit as failure to do so could affect the Guyana Election Commission’s (GECOM’s) planned timelines.

This is according to Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield, who said, on Wednesday, that a team of scrutineers would be working up to Sunday to ensure that they can verify the existence of some 16,300 new registrants.

The need for verification comes as there have been instances of duplicates whereby persons already on the National Register of Registrants Database (NRRDB) were found to be listed as new registrants. Lowenfield said that the activity will bring closure to GECOM’s preparation of a Revised List of Electors (RLE) which will be the final list published for review before the Official List of Electors (OLE).

“The exercise seeks to confirm the identities of 16,300 persons approximately. Working along with our staff and members of the scrutineering teams, we will be moving to ensure that those persons are found. If not found, then the Commission, at the next statutory meeting…will deliberate on further actions to be taken,” the CEO said.

“It is imperative that that decision made over that period because our work plan indicates that we should start production or printing of the revised list of electors on or before December 29, 2019. “

He noted that he has met with party Chief Scrutineers to operationalise the conduct of the exercise and that the goal was to have one team make 20 visits per day. Along with its permanent staff, the Commission will be utilizing the field assistance of persons who worked during the house-to-house registration exercise. Resources for the same will come from left over finances from the cut short house-to-house registration exercise.

Providing data, the CEO said that the largest concentration areas of new registrants to be scrutinized are located on the East Coast corridor with 2,300; South Georgetown with 2,106; North Georgetown with 1,528 and Parika with 1,241.

The total new registrants in other areas include: Mabaruma 511; Moruca Sub Region 176; Charity 451; Anna Regina 682; Vreed-en-hoop 851; La Grange 947; East Bank of Demerara 1,428; New Amsterdam 600; Whim 541; Corriverton 601; Bartica 182; Kamarang 100; Mahdia 105; Paramakatoi 56; Lethem 218; Mackenzie, Linden 459 and Wismar, Linden 451.

Following the verification process, the Commission will provide reports on how the individuals will be committed for production of the RLE. On Wednesday, GECOM Chair, Justice (R’td) Claudette Singh told the media that she ruled that the house-to-house verification exercise be conducted to ensure that there is no leeway for error on the Commission’s part.

“We have to do a 100 per cent verification to ensure that there are no duplicates because we are looking for a credible list and we will ensure that we have that credible list,” Singh said. “I ruled in the interest of transparency and because I would like a credible list; I would like all to have a level playing field so that, in the end, no one can complain that GECOM did something which was just foisted on them without having the List with the new registrants fully verified.”

However, Government-nominated Commissioner, Vincent Alexander has publicly disagreed that house-to-house verification could solve the issue of duplicates on the List of new registrants. He told the newspaper recently that only fingerprint cross matching and manual side-by-side comparisons of the data on registrants can address the issue of duplicates.