…says US Congress is monitoring outside interference in electoral process

“We are monitoring from the Congressional side, all of the various players that are either interfering or trying to put their thumbs on the scale  of the elections in Guyana.”

Those were the words of United States Congresswoman, Yvette Clarke who was on Friday night responding to questions posed by social activist Mark Benschop on his radio programme “Straight Up” as regards interference and threats made to the electoral process here in Guyana by officials of the US state department.

The results of the elections of March, 2, 2020 is still to be declared and back and forth movements within the courts here as well as a recent recount process has seen the results being delayed by almost three months.

On Benschop Radio 107.1FM on Friday night, Clarke said that the United States under the Donald Trump administration has been corrupt on many levels.She said it is a”travesty” that these principles are being diminished as she noted that because of the way the US government is structured, the play field is seen as equal at every level of governance.

She the House of Representatives is maintaining that the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) must be free to do its job without interference from any group “so this can be a free and fair elections.”

Clarke is a Brooklyn native of Jamaican heritage. Shewas elected to the United States House of Representatives in November 2006 and today represents the Ninth Congressional District of New York.

Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield, is expected to hand over his report on the national recount to the Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh today.

The report, which will comprise a tabulation of the votes cast at the General and Regional Elections, will also include a summary of the observation reports for each of the 10 Electoral Districts. It is in these observation reports that the APNU+AFC, primarily, has highlighted over 6,000 cases which it believes are tied to electoral fraud. According to the APNU+AFC, close to 90,000 votes have been comprised as result of these suspected fraudulent acts.

These cases include: missing Official Lists of Electors, ballots for one region cast in another; ballots cast for the dead and persons who have migrated; persons voting without proper identification; persons voting outside of their districts without employment documents; large numbers of improperly stamped ballots at locations where Disciplined Services members voted; missing poll books and documents from one polling station being found in the ballot boxes of another.

The Guyana Chronicle reported today that,notably, on the eve of the submission, reports surfaced that the Elections Secretariat confirmed that the names of 48 persons, for whom death certificates have been produced, were ticked off on the Official List of Electors (OLE) as having voted.

There is already division amongst government-nominated and opposition-nominated commissioners with regard to what should be done about the claimed and observed irregularities. The People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) has argued that every election will produce margins of error and the ones discovered by the coalition are minimal. However, the APNU+AFC contends that there are “clearly linked” patterns amongst the irregularities which invalidated votes cast for the party. It is also steadfast in the position that fraudulent votes cannot be counted and that GECOM has the responsibility to deliver credible results to the electorate