…former MP finds it worrying that PPP/C unconcerned about voting irregularities
APNU+AFC MEMBER, Mervyn Williams, believes that the numerous ballot boxes with missing documents uncovered during the recount process brings into question the extent to which the credibility of the 2020 elections may have been affected, and the Opposition’s push for this to be ignored is “deeply troubling”.
Williams told the newspaper, on Monday, that while the March 2, elections appeared, on the face, to be largely free, fair and credible, the ongoing recount process, which allows for greater scrutiny into ballot boxes by a limited number of workstations, has revealed a series of missteps.
These missteps range from missing poll books, missing Official List of Electors (OLE) to missing PE envelopes and unsigned oaths of identity.
“We have always been confident that the process of elections day appeared, on the face of it, to be smooth, transparent and acceptable and we have been seeing that throughout, but the process of the recount is revealing, daily, a number of instances that could cause one to begin to question whether what we saw, on the face of it, at the elections day, was in fact the extent to the operations of elections day or whether something happened after,” Williams said.
He recently told the newspaper that joining the poll books missing from Region One ballot boxes will be the poll books belonging to Region Nine which were only returned some four days ago, after the recount process had commenced.
Reports are that the RO of the Region, John Abraham, did not send the books, along with the ballot boxes, because the one belonging to the polling station at Shulinab is missing. Although Region Nine is not yet up to be counted, Williams and several others have noted their concerns about the events and why they were kept under wrap until now.
“The troubling thing for me here is that it appears as though we are missing the importance of the poll book to the process, because, in the case of Region One, the same happened where those books were in fact retained or detained by someone or some group of persons. And, what is even more interesting in the case of Region One, is that the Returning Officer resides in the Moruca Sub-Region and the books were reportedly in the Mabaruma Sub Region, quite apart from where he was,” Williams recounted.
“So, the question of custody and supervision of the documents is a pertinent question to the entire process, likewise, the case of Region Nine. We don’t know the extent to which the credibility of this process could be affected.”
Since the commencement of the national recount and for the week since then, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) has been vehemently contesting the raising of such matters by APNU+AFC agents which are being placed into Observation Reports. They contend that the party representatives are merely “wasting time” by bringing to the fore matters which will have no impact on the recount.
“I’m insisting that this Observation Report is a mechanism and a tool that is being used to really waste lots of GECOM’s time,” PPP/C Party Agent, Ganga Persaud said on Monday.
However, Williams said that the party should be concerned that the integrity of the process comes into question when crucial documents are missing and the fact that it is of concern to the APNU+AFC. In his view, the objections are disclosing what he believes the party would be happier was concealed.
He stated: “If you listen to the People’s Progressive Party, from the time they recognised that the recount was in fact on, they started to lay the foundation to rejecting the outcome of the recount. They started out by saying we’re not going into the envelopes, it’s a waste of time doing the recount for ten districts; there’s no point in investigating names crossed off [or] the number of ballots cast, and the full gamut of objections were made by the People’s Progressive Party who insisted that they wanted a numerical count…It is clear that they were very uncomfortable with the nature of the recount that is taking place right now, which is really a replica of an E-Day count.”
He stated further that the fact that rumours have been circulated about payments made by the Opposition to electors of Regions One and Nine is even more unsettling now that key documents from the regions are missing.
Either way, he believes that the special recount being conducted by the Commission will prove to be “extremely educational”.
And, apart from matters directly related to the recount, Williams underscored that a key lesson GECOM should take away from the election impasse is the need for the separation of its Regional Offices from its Command Centre/Tabulation Centre.
He believes that if this was done from the very inception, whereby the Region Four Returning Officer’s Office was placed separate from the Command Centre, the breakdown in the tabulation of Statements of Poll (SOPs) could have been avoided.
“It allowed for a lot of access — unnecessary and unauthorised — and that led to a number of other things that we all know about,” Williams said. “Going forward, it may be useful for the Elections Commission to consider a Region Four Operations Centre that is physically separate from its Head Office and that every district operations office is managed in the same way, is secured in the same way and is treated in the same way.
”Source: https://issuu.com/guyanachroniclee-paper/docs/guyana_chronicle_e-paper_5-13-2020