WHEN things officially returned to some level of normalcy at the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), the Indian High Commission will be reaching out to the electoral body to resume talks about India assisting Guyana in the move towards electronic voting.

Indian High Commissioner to Guyana, Dr K J Srinavasa, said talks had begun in 2019 with GECOM. However, that was stalled given the successive situations and issues that developed at the Commission over the years.

“That conversation was started in 2019 but it never moved very far. Nothing has moved since 2019 but we are willing to offer our assistance, if the GECOM deems it fit we are willing to work with them,” Dr. Srinavasa said in an exclusive interview last Monday.

With a new Chief Elections Officer (CEO) finally put in place at the GECOM Secretariat, Dr. Srinivasa said the Commission will be looking to reach out to GECOM to restart talks.

“I will have to go to them. I was waiting for the settling of GECOM and everything. It’s early and he will have a lot of things on his plate but at the opportune time we will take it up,” Dr. Srinivasa said.

Vishnu Persaud, who had also done electoral training in India, was hired as GECOM’s new CEO last month, replacing Keith Lowenfield who was fired in August.

The possibility of implementing electronic voting in national elections in Guyana is a facility that has been talked about for more than a decade now, given the country’s history of voter tampering and the time it takes to tally and release electoral results, notwithstanding Guyana having less than one million citizens.

This situation was brought all the more into focus during the 2020 elections, where it took over five months before a winner could be officially declared.

The declaration was preceded by attempts to rig the elections, intervention from the international community, several malicious court cases to stall the results, and a national recount. In the end, the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) was finally declared the rightful winners.

In the fall out, several staff of GECOM were charged with electoral fraud, including the former CEO, Lowenfield, Deputy CEO, Roxanne Myers, and Region Four Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo. The saga left many local citizens and members of the international community noting Guyana’s need for reform of its electoral systems.

Embassies of several countries, including India, pledged to work together to see how they can work with the Guyanese system and help with reform.

Electronic voting is considered to be one way in which the system can be changed. Dr. Srinivasa explained that electronic voting has been in use in India for some time now, and has been greatly successful.

Despite having approximately 1.3 billion citizens, and a voting population of over 900 million, Dr. Srinivasa explained that in India complete results are made available within hours after counting starts, thanks to the electronic system implemented.

“It is a humongous exercise getting those people to vote. With the electronic system, we have machines made in India, tested in the 1990s, and introduced in the India elections between 1998 and 2001 and we have since had about four parliamentary elections after that. And they work perfectly fine. No error, fully tamper proof,” the Indian diplomat noted.