WITH timely distribution of elections results topping the pyramid of woes for electoral processes in Guyana, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has piloted the use of an electronic tabulation system for the recently-concluded University of Guyana Students’ Society Elections. 

And while some have lauded the new system, others have mounted concerns to the University administration as well as the GECOM about flaws in the unconventional system, which for the most part has been attributed to the lack of voter education.
Four student parties contested the 2014 UGSS elections: The Students’ Empowerment Alliance (SEA); Revolutionaries; The Students’ United Movement (SUM); and the Student Movement Advocating Real Transformation (SMART). The elections were conducted across the Turkeyen and Tain campuses from October 1 through October 4.
As no elections are without its fair share of conflicts and discrepancies, student candidates have expressed their concerns over the newly- implemented electronic tabulation system.

VOTER EDUCATION
Presidential hopeful for ‘The Revolutionaries’ party, Glenfield Dennison, made clear his position that although he has no objection to the method of vote counting, his only objection was the inadequate time provided to ensure voter education.
He questioned the time taken by the administration to inform both the students and candidates of the new system to be used, a view which was shared by the incumbent acting student body President of the Students’ Empowerment Alliance (SEA), Joshua Griffith, who also expressed concern that the administration had not engaged the students as they ought.
Presidential hopeful of the Student Movement Advocating Real Transformation (SMART), Andre Chowbay, gave a detailed account of the failed attempts by the administration.
The young representative disclosed that a training session on using the machine, facilitated by the Administration and the Canadian NGO, was planned for September 30.
This, however, failed to materialise according to Chowbay, since none of the candidates were informed of the 10AM training session, instead being urged to attend a 4PM meeting with the Assistant Registrar of Students’ Welfare Division, Danielle King.
The SMART candidate said that some students have expressed a lack of trust in the system since there is some uncertainty as to how it operates.
Assistant Registrar for Students’ Welfare, Danielle King, in an interview with the Guyana Chronicle, said that one candidate had in fact expressed concern with the electronic system being used; but the greater concern had to do with the lack of voter education.
King, speaking for the administration, said that most of the shortcomings in voter education was due to a short time-frame by the University of Guyana to operationalise the system. “Notwithstanding that, we have gone out to classes,” she said, adding that large classes were targeted for voter education.
She stressed that there was even use of the Students’ Record Management System (SRMS) – an electronic mailing system used to inform students of administrative notices.
She, however, assured that “given the simplicity of how the machines function, the [voting] process has not changed significantly. The only difference will be reflected at the end of the day in the tabulation.”

ADMINISTRATIVE ERROR
On the day of the Turkeyen campus voting segment, one gross administrative error was uncovered by SMART candidate, Andre Chowbay. The presidential hopeful had reported that there was one extra candidate from his party who was added to the Faculty Representatives ballot for the School of Earth and Environmental Science (SEES).
Making his way to another polling station, the distressed candidate also uncovered that the extra candidate who was printed on the ballot for the SEES was in fact the candidate whose name was to be printed for the Faculty of Social Sciences ballot.
Frantically he made contact with Ms. Danielle King who sought to rectify the matter. When this publication caught up with the Ms. King on the day of the polls, she confirmed that there was an error on the ballots.
She stated that when the discrepancy was uncovered, there were “only nine” persons who had cast their vote. King said that there was a decision to continue using the ballot papers made specifically for the machine, which included the presidential candidates at the top.
In her capacity as Assistant Registrar in charge of Students’ Welfare, she said that another decision was taken to “put into place the previously used ballot papers.” “We generated and verified all of the people for whom we had received nominations and we made available a faculty representative ballot.”
This ballot, however, was separate from the ballot to be placed in the machine. On the question of whether a spoiled ballot would occur if a member of the electorate, being ill-informed of the change, had voted for a faculty representative on the first sheet rather than the second, King commented that “even if people disregard our instruction… when we are counting this evening that would be disregarded.”
She said: “The faculty representative count will be a manual count because we had to resort to the manual system.” “When we put into play the regular ballot paper, all of those are being entered into a separate compartment than the one where the presidential candidate [votes would be placed].”
She gave all assurance that when the problem was discovered, a figure was acquired from the polling stations to map the number of votes that were already cast.
“We took away the voters’ lists from each station,” she stated, adding that a call was made “for those students who voted and they were only able to vote for the Presidential candidate.”
Asked whether those who would have voted had responded to the call, she responded saying that “all of them had not answered but a large number of students have responded.” King continued that the voters’ lists were returned and once examined for evidence of previous voting, those persons were allowed to cast their vote for faculty representatives.
Two of the contenders for the Presidency, Glenfield Dennison and Denroy Tudor expressed solidarity with the SMART candidates. Dennison for his part called the happenings “a travesty of justice.”
He was more so concerned at the chances for double counting of Faculty Representatives, since he perceived that some voters might vote for representatives on both the original ballots and the manual ballots.
While Dennison offered a solution of conducting a separate election in the future for the Faculty Representatives, another candidate Denroy Tudor urged for the elections to be halted until the issue was dealt with effectively. None of these considerations were taken into account.
The official results of the UGSS elections were slated to be released yesterday, reflecting an upset by incumbent Joshua Griffith, who gained the majority of votes. From the tally, some 1,500 registered students voted out of an estimate of 5,000 eligible voters.

(By Derwayne Wills)