Chief Elections Officer of the Guyana Elections Commission (CEO) Keith Lowenfield in his report of the recent recount process of the March 2, 2020 regional and general elections pointed to irregularities such as voter impersonation and missing Oaths of Identities and a host of other anomalies affecting the credibility of the process.

Lowenfield presented his report today to Chair of the GECOM, Justice (ret’d) Claudette Singh.

Lowenfield zoomed in on the non-credibility of the electoral process on E-Day in the various districts.

For District One , he said that the summation of anomalies and instances of voter impersonation identified in that district  “clearly does not appear to satisfy the criteria of impartiality, fairness, and compliance with provisions of the Constitution and the ROPA Cap 1:03.”

He said that consequently, on the basis of the votes counted and the information furnished from the recount, it cannot be ascertained that the results in that District meet the standard of fair and credible elections.

Lowenfield listed similar observations on the process across the other 9 Districts.Missing Oaths of Identities,Certificates of Employment, as well as ballot boxes with no documentation are among the anomalies which was included in his report.

As the recount process unfolded in recent weeks at the Arthur Chung Convention Center, a number of red flags were raised. The APNU+AFC Coalition has written several letters to the elections commission detailing its concerns and provided information to substantiate its claims, that a number of irregularities occurred on March 2 at polling stations across the country.

“It is impossible for an election to represent the will of the people if a large portion of ballots cast by the electorate have been made invalid or questionable, not by the doings of the electorate, but that of those authorised to conduct the elections and other outside forces,” APNU+AFC candidate Ganesh Mahipaul who observed the recount process, argued when he appeared on Guyana Chronicle’s Vantage Point on Friday.

Mahipaul said that while his party has been insisting that GECOM fulfill its constitutional duty to deliver credible elections, some other political parties seem to care little about the “credible” as aspect of the elections.

The irregularities highlighted during the recount process,when categorised according to the APNU+AFC, include ballots rejected due to actions on the part of GECOM staff such as improper stamping; questionable ballots due to the absence of statutory documents such as poll books, the Official List of Electors (OLE) with names ticked off and oaths of identities; and persons voting in the place of those dead and migrated.

Though People’s Progressive Party Civic agents did not raise contention about the irregularities witnessed in the boxes, Mahipaul said that, on occasions, he received the support of the United Republican Party (URP) and The Citizenship Initiative (TCI). “They supported it because they understood and agreed that these anomalies are real and truly factual and they cannot reconcile what is in the box,” he said.

There is still disagreement amongst political parties about whether GECOM is responsible for conducting investigations into the cases of irregularities raised. According to the PPP/C, such does not fall within the remit of GECOM but the courts and through an election petition. However, the APNU+AFC has put forward a different reasoning.

“This is the Guyana Elections Commission’s process. It is they who have to give this country credible results and, in order for them to give credible results, they have to validate their own findings, what is being told to them; they have to ensure that when they make a pronouncement it is one of credibility and you cannot do that without doing your investigation,” Mahipaul rebutted.

The APNU+AFC Agent said that the national recount process gave Guyanese a close-up view of what were the irregularities within ballot boxes which otherwise, perhaps, would not have come to their attention. He believes that it is highly likely that such were also present at other elections.