PERSONS participating the in the national recount at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC) run the risk of being removed from their workstations by law officials should they fail to adhere to the ‘no-videoing’ of recount process rules.
This was conveyed to the media by Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM, Yolanda Ward, at the end of the first day of the national recount.
Ward said that the commission had taken note of videos circulating on social media whereby some persons, at different workstations, had documented the process.
Prior to the recount, the commission had made it clear that the video live-streaming of the recount process would be a violation of Section 90 of the Representation of the People Act which speaks to the protection of the identity of the voter.
As such, Ward told the media: “This was not permitted by the commission. All those persons at the count were informed of this and so the decision of the commission is that hence forth people will be cautioned to desist from such a practice and if they’re found to doing so, they will be escorted from the respective workstations.”
She said that the commission is especially keen on ensuring that this guideline is maintained throughout the process and will go to the necessary lengths to ensure it. Ward said that this message, being made clear, it is the hoped that such incidents will not reoccur today.
Meanwhile, Commissioner Vincent Alexander noted that a television entity has also been noted as entering the recount centre and videoing the process — inclusive of the identity of GECOM staff. “We did have that problem today of a particular media house getting involved in streaming and doing exactly what we didn’t want to happen, having workers faces appearing,” he said. “We prefer for the security and safety of those workers not to include them.”
He said that the specific media house was undoubtedly aware of the restrictions in this regard. As it relates to the forms of livestreaming catered for, facilities have been established at each workstation to capture and broadcast a photo of the ballot boxes, depicting the state in which they are delivered to the workstation, only visible to those within the centre.
Meanwhile, an audio feed of the recount process is being broadcasted via GECOM’s Facebook page. From the audio feed, one could hear every action taken by the GECOM staff being described verbally by the said staff. The Counting Clerk, at the count of each ballot, could be heard stating words such as “PPP/C 1” or “APNU/AFC 1”. At intervals, the clerk would check to see that all observing the process had arrived at a similar total.
Source: https://issuu.com/guyanachroniclee-paper/docs/guyana_chronicle_epaper_05_07_2020