THE recount of ballots for Region Three was halted, during the afternoon period on Friday, after some ballot boxes were found to be without their Official List of Electors, without the required envelopes and unsigned oaths of identity.
This incident has been reported to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and a decision is expected on how Counting Agents must now proceed.
This was one of the updates provided by APNU+AFC agent, Ganesh Mahipaul upon exiting the Arthur Chung Conference Centre during the first half of the day. He is positioned at workstation five, dealing with the votes cast in Region Three.
He said that when the first ballot box #3040 Arthurville Primary, Wakenaam, came to the workstation, it was observed that, while it had its general plastic seal, only a piece of the seal placed by the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) was on top of the box’s cover. However, given that there were other seals on the outward part of the box, it was opened for counting.
Mahipaul said that another snag was reached when the ballot box was opened but there was no Official List of Electors also called the “pink list” and the wire seals in the necessary envelopes were missing.
“It begs the question as to what really went on at that ballot station but we could not have continued with that count because there was no Official List of Electors,” he said. “Unless we could have done this reconciliation with the pink list then we cannot go on to do what is necessary for us to have a fair, transparent, credible count of that particular ballot box.”
Mahipaul said that it was unfortunate that the PPP/C and other small parties kept on insisting that the ballots be counted nonetheless. The agent held his ground against the parties as he noted that the pink list is key to determining that the number of ballots in the box matches the number issued by the GECOM based on the number of electors on the pink list.
He is pleased that the decision was eventually taken to have the contents be replaced in the box, that the box be resealed and that it be replaced in the container of ballot boxes.
When second box was taken up from the Anna Catherina Nursery polling place, Mahipaul said that it had a “series of PEs” that are missing —- referring to the yellow envelopes required to be placed in ballot boxes. Each envelope is labelled with the letters PE and carries numbers such as PE 1, PE 2. Each PE has labels and represent the content within the ballot boxes.
There were also 11 unsigned oaths of identity at the said polling place. It is highly unusual for such a large number of oaths of identity to be found in a single ballot box and this was deemed as a red flag by one election expert.
Mahipaul lamented that this was allowed by the GECOM staff previously assigned to these polling stations noting that the materials are necessary in such a process and even in the case of an election petition.
Although he objected to the second box being counted without a resolution, the Supervisor instructed that the counting proceed but a note be taken of the discrepancies and objections.
Source: https://issuu.com/guyanachroniclee-paper/docs/guyana_chronicle_epaper_09_05_2020