– during third Cycle of Continuous Registration
THE Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has reported that it received 35,055 applications for new registration and 3,791 applications for change/correction during the recently concluded third Cycle of Continuous Registration which began on March 17, 2012 and ended on June 18, 2012. Applications for the registration transactions were received at the 27 permanent Registration Offices which are located strategically across all of Guyana’s ten Registration Districts.
GECOM said that during the latter half of this registration exercise, a temporary Registration Sub-Office was set up at Better Hope Community Centre (Lower Flat), Better Hope, East Coast Demerara with the primary objective of providing easier access for eligible persons residing between and including Industry and Triumph, East Coast Demerara, to conduct registration transactions.
“The implementation of the third Cycle of Continuous Registration was supported with the deployment of Mobile Registration Units (MRUs) in a deliberate endeavour targeting eligible persons from far flung riverine and hinterland communities who are faced with extreme difficulties in visiting the established Registration Offices, that are responsible for their respective communities, because of the lack of reliable and affordable transportation facilities,” GECOM said.
The staff of the various Registration Offices are currently engaged in verifying the residency status of applicants for registration, this being an integral part of the registration process. As at Tuesday June 19, the residency status of 30,143 applicants had been verified. Failure to verify the residency status of the concerned applicants would result in their applications for registration being put on hold.
Consequent upon the completion of the continuing verification activities, and the sequential encoding of the particulars of the applicants i.e. an ongoing exercise as the details of verified applicants are received at the GECOM Secretariat, all of the newly captured fingerprints will be dispatched overseas to be cross matched with the fingerprints of all registrants listed in the National Register of Registrants (NRR) to check for multiple registrations.  Subsequently, all of the approved new registrants would be added to the NRR .Thereafter, National Identification Cards would be produced and issued to all of the newly registered persons.
Upon completion of the verification of the residency status of the applicants, all of the permanent Registration Offices will routinely treat with applications for replacements in respect of lost or damaged ID cards, as well as in cases where the photographs on ID cards are found to be of poor quality.  Also, uncollected National Identification Cards, which were produced from the 2008 House-to-House Registration exercise onwards, could routinely be uplifted from the respective Registration Offices.