MORE than 340,000 persons have been registered up to Friday during this cycle of House-to-House Registration. But, as the exercise wraps up today, the numbers are expected to climb.

The national registration exercise will come to an end at 19:00hrs today in keeping with a decision taken on Tuesday by the Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh to shorten the period initially designated for House-to-House Registration. Once the exercise has concluded, GECOM will move to merge the data garnered from that registration exercise with the existing National Register of Registrants Database (NRRDB) paving the way for the Preliminary List of Electors to be extracted.

GECOM’s Public Relations Officer (PRO) Yolanda Warde was sure to clarify on Friday that no one will be left out in the cold in the upcoming General and Regional Elections, which were triggered as a result of a No-Confidence Motion passed against the Government last December.

Warde, in an interview with the Guyana Chronicle, explained that Guyanese, who have been registered and were unable to do so during the period allotted for House-to-House Registration, will be given an opportunity to have their names added to the National Register of Registrants Database during the Claims and Objection Period.

“If you will be 18-years-old by the 31ST October, and you have never registered, you will have that opportunity to do so during the claims and objection exercised,” the GECOM PRO said.

She explained too that in keeping with the August 14 ruling of the Chief Justice (ag) Roxane George-Wiltshire, the Elections Commission will not remove anyone from the National Register of Registrant Database with the exception of those who would have died (once the required documents are provided) and those who have become disqualified. As such, names of Guyanese who have registered in the past will remain on the national register.

“If you are on the current database, and you might have had name change, you would have had transferred or relocated from one address to the other, and the team may not have reached you as yet, then you have an opportunity to do that change during the claims and objection exercise which would be office base. So rather than we going to you, you will come to us, and then we will do a verification of that,” Warde explained.

However, the period for Claims and Objection has not been set. Warde noted that at this stage, GECOM is soliciting information on how it could effectively carry out fingerprint cross matching as the data from the national registration is merged with the National Register of Registrants Database.

“GECOM has been engaging a company for a long time that has been doing fingerprint cross matching for us, however, that company has given us a little longer timeline than we would want particularly at this juncture which we are trying to deliver with expediency. So what we have decided is that Jamaica has that expertise, in terms of fingerprint cross matching, so that Technical team was in Jamaica to see what system they have, the functionality of the system, and to really see how best they might be able to support us by giving us a shorter time that they can deliver those results than the other company,” Warde explained.

GECOM’s Deputy Chief Elections Officer, Roxanne Myers; and its Information Technology Manager form part of the team assessing the cross-matching and verification technology in Jamaica.

As the hours count down, Guyanese are being urged to avail themselves for registration during period.

Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo, was among the first of the country’s leaders to embrace GECOM’s decision to add the data captured during the House-to-House Registration to the National Register of Registrants Database. He had also urged unregistered Guyanese 14 years and older to get registered within this window period.

“I would urge everyone 14 years and above to step forward in this window of opportunity to register,” the Prime Minister told Guyana Chronicle.

Though the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) coalition had preferred the generation of a new National Register of Registrants through the process of House-to-House Registration, from which the Official List of Electors would have been extracted, the Prime Minister acknowledged that the national registration exercise is not the only means of arriving at a credible Official List of Electors.

“House-to-House Registration was a method but it was not the only method by which you could have an authentic, credit list. It was not the only method,” the Prime Minister told this newspaper, noting that based GECOM’s decision an extensive Claims and Objection exercise would be carried out in its quest to generate a credible list.

Meanwhile, GECOM said it will continue to further deliberate on other matters of importance for the holding of General and Regional Elections within the shortest possible time, adding that the Secretariat will continue to implement a number of operations activities, in particular training of polling day staff and procurement of non-sensitive materials.