THE issue of possible disenfranchisement of voters is not necessarily an issue about numbers, but about a problem that is intertwined with the fight for universal adult suffrage and the need for a flawless national register to guarantee all Guyanese the exercise of that hard won right, Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon said yesterday. During a post-Cabinet media briefing, he disclosed that Cabinet on Tuesday acknowledged the action taken by GECOM in making the decision to enfranchise Guyanese who were likely to be denied their right to vote because they did not have birth certificates at the closing of the Claims and Objections exercise on June 9th last.
Dr. Luncheon disclosed that, about six to seven thousand persons would have been adversely affected if the Claims and Objections period had not been reopened.
He said that all interested parties now had the opportunity to get the birth certificates (source documents) necessary for registration, into the hands of those who do not have them.
He stressed that the Government’s contention is that this task is not exclusively that of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).
He disclosed, too, that processing of requests for outstanding payments for GECOM’s Contractors, is a work in progress.
GECOM, on Monday last, by majority vote, agreed to reopen registration for unregistered persons from July 25th for a period of thirteen days.
GECOM’s Chairman, Dr. Steve Surujbally, stressed that the Commission found that thousands of Guyanese had received their birth certificates after the 2011 “Claims and Objections” exercise for the national register had ended and had thus been unable to get on the list.
The reopened registration process will be no different from that which earlier obtained, in that persons must present either their original birth certificates or valid passports upon presenting themselves to be registered.
Their residency status will be verified by visits to their given addresses, and all fingerprints captured during the reopened exercise will be cross-matched with those already in GECOM’s possession to check for multiple registration.
Provision will also be made for scrutineers to monitor the entire new registration process at the field level throughout the country, and the particulars of all newly registered persons will be posted on Supplementary Lists for public scrutiny.