– Aubrey Norton says

Representative of A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC), Aubrey Norton said the recount process, which spanned for a period of 35 days at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC), presented the nation and the world at large with a vivid picture of the illegalities that took place when the General and Regional Elections were held on March 2, 2020.

“I believe that the recount process was able to put out there, what actually happened on Elections Day. And from that we recognised that, it is a good thing that we went to a recount because a lot of the things that you couldn’t see with the naked eyes on Elections Day, the recount revealed,” Norton reasoned.

The People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) and its allies have argued that the recount of the ballots was merely numerical, and was never intended to treat with anomalies, irregularities and alleged cases of electoral fraud but the APNU+AFC Representative objected to such a notion as he referenced the Order gazetted by the Chair of the Elections Commission, Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh. The Order, he submitted, not only provides for the tabulation of the votes but also the reconciliation of the ballots issued with the ballots cast, in addition to destroyed, spoiled, stamped, and as deemed necessary, their counterfoils. It also provides for the provision of additional information including the number of votes cast without ID cards; the number of proxies issues and the number of utilised; statistical anomalies; and occurrences recorded in the Poll Books.

From the onset of the recount, it was discovered that Poll Books, Certificates of Employments, Oaths of Identity and even the Official Lists of Electors were missing from ballot boxes while some ballot boxes had more ballots cast than Electors listed on the Official List of Electors, in the absence of supporting documentation. In the later stages of the recount of the votes, 41 ballot boxes from the East Coast of Demerara (ECD) were discovered with none of the statutorily required documents.

“Missing OLEs – when you go to an elections, and you vote, and the Official List of Electors, they mark your name off. Now, if there is no OLE, how to you know who voted, and that is why the 41 ballot boxes that had no documentation cannot be valid, because if you don’t have an OLE you cannot say, these are the 80 people that voted,” Norton reasoned. He noted that the issue of ballot boxes being void of critical documents was not unique to Region Four, as boxes from other parts of the country, were also discovered with only votes in side – the majority cast in favour of the PPP/C.

In addition to those glaring irregularities, the APNU+AFC pointed to cases of electoral fraud, in which unscrupulous persons allegedly voted in the place of the deceased and electors who were out of the jurisdiction when Elections were held. The Guyana Police Force, Immigration Department has thus far confirmed 172 persons from a list of 207, whose names were ticked off as having voted on Elections Day, were out of the jurisdiction on Elections Day. Though one person have written GECOM out of concern that someone voted for him illegally, a number of other persons, have alleged that the information provided by the Immigration Department is flawed on the basis that they were in Guyana and would have exercised their democratic right to vote.

These irregularities and alleged cases of electoral fraud, Norton contended, have nonetheless compromised approximately 90, 000 votes. “I wish to state here clearly, that the 2020 Elections were not credible,” he contended.

With the physical recounting and tabulation of votes completed, the Chief Elections Officer, Keith Lowenfield has initiated the process of preparing a report on the tabulated votes, in addition to a summary report of the observations that were cited during the recount process for all 10 Electoral Districts. Those reports are expected to be submitted on or before June 13, 2020 for deliberation by the Elections Commission.

While the PPP/C has argued that Article 163 gives the High Court exclusive adjudicate over alleged cases of electoral fraud, and ought to declare the results regardless of the irregularities, the APNU+AFC is maintaining that GECOM, under 162 of the Constitution, is duty bound to declare “credible” results to the Guyanese people. According to Norton, the CEO, in his report, is duty bound to include only valid votes in report, and failure to do so will result in a declaration that is not based on a credible electoral process.

“What that means, is that, these boxes, and the other discrepancies have got to be addressed before a declaration. What came out as the count was really a tabulation of everything, there is still to be undertaken the process of determining what is valid and what is invalid, and I believe when that process is true, it will be established beyond doubt that these elections were fraudulent,” Norton said.

In support of the APNU+AFC’s position, the Political Scientist contended that the PPP/C has been engaged in a game of ‘cherry picking.’ He said that when it was argued in the Courts that GECOM had no legal authority to facilitate a National Recount, it was PPP/C that argued that GECOM, under the Constitution, had the authority to conduct a recount to determine the credibility of the electoral process. Credibility, he posited, cannot be established if the irregularities and alleged cases of fraud are not addressed.