WITH many of the teething problems addressed and the addition of two workstations taking the total number to 12, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Secretariat is making significant strides at it recounts the votes cast at the General and Regional Elections last March.

On Thursday, Day 16, the secretariat processed a total of 88 ballot boxes from Regions Three, Four, Five, Six and Seven. Overall, 877 boxes have been processed from a total of 2,339. This means that 1,462 remain to be processed.

In providing the details of Thursday’s recount exercise at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, (ACCC), GECOM’s Public Relations Officer (PRO) Yolanda Ward disclosed that of the 88 ballot boxes processed on Thursday, 25 were from Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara); 19 from Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica); 17 from Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice); 18 from Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), and nine (9) from Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni).

Prior to Tuesday, the number of ballot boxes processed on a daily basis fluctuated between the late 40s and early mid-50s; however, since the addition of two workstations, the numbers jumped to 76 and now 88. The elections commission, chaired by Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh, is now looking to further increase the workstations to 14; however, it is awaiting clearance from the National COVID-19 Task Force (NCTF) to add two more stations.

Meanwhile, once a ballot box is completely processed at the level of the workstation, a Statement of Recount (SoR) is generated, and according to Ward, for the general elections, 844 SoRs have been tabulated. For the regional elections, 820 SoRs have been tabulated.
Thus far, all boxes from Region One (Barima-Waini) and Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam) have been counted. There was a total of 99 ballot boxes from Region One, and 135 from Region Two.

Based on the votes recounted for Region One, the A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) secured 3,909 votes in the general elections, while the Liberty and Justice Party (LJP) raked in 170, PPP/C 8002, People’s Republic Party 24 and the United Republican Party, six – a total number of 12,111 valid votes cast. According to statistics coming out of GECOM’s Tabulation Centre at the ACCC, there were 328 rejected ballots and 41 spoilt ballots.

In the regional elections, the APNU+AFC raked in 3,843 votes while LJP secured 144, the PPP/C, 7, 996 and the URP 77. There was a total of 12, 060 valid votes cast by a total of 12, 440 persons who had presented themselves on March 2 to vote in Region One.

Meanwhile in Region Two, the APNU+AFC secured 7,340 votes in the general elections, while the PPP/C raked in 18,785 votes. A New and United Guyana (ANUG) received 85 votes while Change Guyana (CG) got 151, LJP 121; PRP, 57; The Citizenship Initiative (TCI) 18 and URP, 64. In total, there were 26,621 valid votes cast.

For the regional elections, the APNU+AFC received 7,290 votes, while its primary contender – the PPP/C – secured 18, 755. The smaller parties, Change Guyana (CG) raked in 216 votes while LJP secured 135 and URP, 95. There was a total of 26,491 valid voters in the regional elections for Region Two.

The GECOM Secretariat, in accordance with the gazetted Order, will move to recount votes from Regions Eight, Nine and 10 upon completion of the other regions.