By Staff Reporter
…GECOM says working to make final declaration as “early as possible”
…returning Officers should have declarations by midday
AS the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) work through last evening to tabulate the ballots from Monday’s regional and general elections, the declarations from the Returning Officers (RO) should be ready by midday today.
This is according to Chief Elections Officer, Keith Lowenfield, who told reporters at GECOM’s media centre at High Street that the commission is working to have the results released as early as possible.
While he could not commit to a date and time as to when the final results will be made available, Lowenfield, who was flanked by GECOM Chair, Retired Justice Claudette Singh and PRO, Yolanda Ward, explained that, after the polls were closed last evening at 1800hrs, counting commenced at all polling stations across the country.
“It is our hope that that count will conclude in good time to allow for the statements of poll to be placed first of all at conspicuous locations outside the polling stations,” he said.
He said the next step will see the statements being uplifted by the Deputy Returning Officers and the Returning Officers. He said last night, statements which were received by the ROs will see the commencement of a “public verification process” which includes the public display of each statement in every district and that will continue until all the statements for each district are concluded. Following this, the RO will declare the results in the respective districts.
Ward provided a breakdown of the figures relative to the total number of persons who were eligible to vote as well as polling stations across the country on Monday. Ward said that 2339 polling stations across the country were operated by GECOM on Monday and according to her, some 660,998 persons were listed on the Official List of Electors (OLE).
She gave a breakdown, for each administrative region including Region One where 99 polling stations operated and 18,952 were listed on the OLE. In Region Two, there were 135 polling stations with 37,979 eligible persons listed to vote while in Region Three, 355 polling stations operated and 100,758 electors were listed to vote.
For Region Four, the largest in terms of figures, there were 879 polling stations with 285,618 electors listed to vote, while in Region Five, there were 158 polling stations with 44,663 electors listed to vote there. In Region Six, there were 378 polling stations and 99,131 persons were listed to vote while in Region Seven, there were 83 polling stations and 14,887 persons were listed to vote. In Region Eight, there were 55 polling stations with 7431 persons listed to vote.
Region Nine had a total of 73 polling stations and 17,771 were listed to vote. In Region 10 there were 125 polling stations and 33,808 persons were listed to vote. GECOM will share information on the website www.guyanaelections.com where it will provide periodic updates on results and it will also post same on the commission’s Facebook page. The commission will provide another briefing today around 09:00hrs.
Source: https://issuu.com/guyanachroniclee-paper/docs/guyana_chronicle_epaper_03_03_2020