…training for secretariat staff set for today

THE Secretariat of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) is actively preparing for the highly anticipated National Recount, and today, it will up the tempo as it conducts a training session detailing the procedures that will be employed during the tabulation process.

The Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield, on Wednesday, briefed the Commission, chaired by Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh, on the Secretariat’s preparedness to facilitate the National Recount of the votes cast at the March 2020 General and Regional Elections.
Moments after the meeting came to a close at GECOM’s Headquarters, Commissioner Vincent Alexander told reporters that the Secretariat is in full preparation mode even as it awaits a commencement order from the Elections Commission. “They are not waiting [on a commencement date for the recount], they are proceeding with pace,” he posited.
Alexander said even as the Commission was meeting, personnel from the Secretariat were at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre putting systems in place to facilitate the recount. When Guyana Chronicle visited the Conference Centre, personnel attached to Stain Masters Guyana were seen cleaning the facility.

Training
Today, the Secretariat will conduct a training session with its staff to bring them up to par with the Operational Plan or Work Plan, and other procedures that would be employed in keeping with recommendations of the National COVID-19 Task Force (NCTF) intended to prevent the spread of the deadly Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19).

According to the approved operational plan, there will be 10 workstations operating for a period of 11 hours – from 08:00hrs to 19:00hrs on a daily basis. Eight of the 10 workstations will have no more than 14 persons assigned inclusive of four GECOM personnel, while the other two workstations will have no more than 10 persons.

According to the plan, the votes cast in District Four will be tabulated simultaneously with other districts. Of the 10 work stations, three will be assigned to District Four – the country’s largest electoral region. At each workstation, the process would be initiated with a checklist to ascertain the contents of a ballot box. Once that is done, the ballots would be counted in a manner similar to the process employed at Polling Stations at the close of poll. The votes cast in favour of each List of Representatives will be recorded on Statements of Recount as against a Statements of Poll.

Precautionary measures
In view of COVID-19, it is expected that major emphasis will be placed on the precautionary measures that are expected to suppress the spread of the disease. The NCTF, based on inspections done by health experts, provided the Elections Commission with 14 guidelines that ought to be followed. Including in those guidelines is a recommendation that persons involved in the recount at the Conference Centre should have their masks changed every 30-60 minutes but Alexander, while noting that the Task Force’s recommendations have been accepted, said the issue with regards to the masks was not raised at Wednesday’s meeting.

“I think basically the recommendations are being accepted but I cannot speak specifically to that one which says changing mask every half an hour,” the Elections Commissioner said while iterating that the issue was not raised.

Based on the Elections Commission’s decision to have no more than 132 persons operate at the 10 workstations for a period of 11 hours daily for 25 days, it is likely that GECOM Secretariat would require 36,300 masks, should it decide to adhere to the recommendations of the health officials to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus. That’s, however, if the masks are changed every hour. However, should the Secretariat decide that persons should change their masks every 30 minutes, then, 72,600 disposal masks would be needed.

The other recommendations include the need to sanitize frequently and for all involved to remain hydrated. “Rooms must have a table at the entrance and exit with disposable face masks, hand sanitizers with minimum 70% alcohol, disposable gloves, disposal hand tissue, for example, Bounty tissue, foot pressed type-rubbish bins with garbage bags to avoid touching,” the Task Force said in its report to the Elections Commission.

Alexander, while iterating that the guidelines in the report were not discussed in detail, expressed confidence in the Secretariat’s ability to execute the recount while maintaining the standards required to prevent the spread of the virus. “You know people are lambasting a commission…which ran an election in 2015, which everybody said it was well conducted, which ran an election in 2020, and prior to what occurred in Region 4, said that it was well conducted. So you are bringing into disrepute a Commission, which has proven its capacity,” Alexander reasoned.

He iterated that the Commission, the Chief Elections Officer and Secretariat have demonstrated their ability to execute elections, emphasising that prior to the debacle in the Region 4, those who observed the electoral process acknowledged that the 2020 election was well conducted.

Commissioner Sase Gunraj, in a separate interview, while expressing outrage over the recommendation that masks should be changed every 30-60 minutes, said that the Secretariat has signaled its preparedness for the national recount. “The secretariat assured us that they are prepared, and in fact are moving forward with training, etc,” Gunraj said while adding that the Secretariat has the financial resources to put the required systems in place.

However, he noted that due to the challenges that arose during the tabulation of the Region 4 Statements of Poll following the conduct of the March 2 Elections, the issue of staff appointment and assignment was discussed during Wednesday’s meeting. Last week, the Chair of GECOM, indicated that the Region 4 Return Officer Clairmont Mingo should not be involved in the recount given challenges that erupted under his watch.