THE General and Regional Elections of March, 2020, fell victim to a devious scheme that benefitted from the involvement of staffers of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) at all levels.

This was the picture painted by Leader of the Liberty and Justice Party (LJP), Lenox Shuman, when he took the stand to present evidence on the third day of hearings in the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the 2020 General and Regional Elections.

Shuman’s account implicated GECOM’s employees at the very top, like Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield, and Deputy Chief Elections Officer (DCEO), Roxanne Myers, just as much as it implicated “low-ranking” employees; some of whom were caught on video tampering with elections materials.

As is common in other testimonies thus far, Shuman’s story also featured IT technician Enrique Livan.

Shuman told the commission that he turned up at GECOM’s District Four Command Centre (the Ashmin building) on March 4, 2020, at the point when GECOM officials were seeking to halt the tabulation process until the following morning.

The reason given was that employees were tired. He said that he approached Lowenfield and expressed total dissatisfaction with the state of affairs.

Shuman said he reminded the CEO that he had 18 months and ample financial resources to adequately prepare for the elections. Therefore, episodes such as those that played out should have been nonexistent.

Shuman said that his concerns were met by little to no response from Lowenfield. According to Shuman, Lowenfield bowed his head, sometimes sat “as if he were in profound thought,” but said nothing in response to the concerns raised.

Shuman recalled that after two female employees insisted that they were too tired to continue, Livan took over.

Livan started calling inaccurate figures and then eventually said that he too was tired and could have no longer continued. Shuman said that Livan’s intention to stop the process was met with protest by party agents, but that did not stop him.

“He picked up the laptop, unplugged it folded it, walked out the room and turned left into another room where only GECOM staffers were allowed,” Shuman recalled.
Shuman testified that he soon heard a “commotion.” He recalled that someone shouted that Livan was “doing something” on the computer.

“I ran out of the tabulation room. I ran to the door of the room in which he was sitting with the computer open,” he said.

The politician noted that when the computer left the room it was without a flash drive, but he then noticed that one was subsequently inserted.

Shuman said that at that point, party agents began yelling that Livan was tampering with the numbers.

Some documents were also being printed. Shuman said that he took those documents and later handed them over to the police.

He further testified that when Livan eventually returned to the tabulation room, he accidentally opened a prepopulated spreadsheet. Shuman said that he was sure that that was not the spreadsheet they were working on before the computer was taken.

He added that Livan made efforts to quickly close that spreadsheet but took some time “probably because he panicked.”

Shuman said that after an uproar, that prepopulated spreadsheet was closed and “we got back to the right spreadsheet.”

Shuman told the commission that at one point, CEO Lowenfield acknowledged some of what was going wrong, including inaccurate numbers that were presented. Lowenfield blamed the error on the staffers being tired and committed to have them corrected.

Shuman said that one of the party agents requested the prepopulated file but was not given same.

In the midst of all that occurring, Shuman said that he was in receipt of information that even more mischief was afoot. He said that while he was at the Ashmin building, he received a video.

Watching that video, persons clad in GECOM uniform were seen carefully removing the seals from brown envelopes and others were seen, in the same video, resealing those envelopes.

Shuman said that he forwarded the video to Lowenfield and said, “Look what your staff is doing, this should not be happening.”

Shuman said that the CEO responded: “I will deal with it.” The video was presented to the commission and taken into evidence.

But the struggles endured by Shuman, in his first election as a politician, did not end there. The LJP leader said that on March 5, after having much difficulties accessing the Ashmin building, he was met with more disappointment.

He said that despite many concerns raised and despite the fact that the tabulation and verification processes were not completed, District Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo attempted to make a declaration of the Region Four results.

Shuman said that Mingo’s attempts were interrupted by boisterous protest.

“We found that it was completely and absolutely premature to make such a declaration without completing the process,” Shuman told the CoI.

Mingo then left the room, went upstairs and again attempted to make a declaration. Shuman presented a video recording of this.

Persons were heard chanting: “No, no; unacceptable; not one ounce of integrity.”

Because of that ruckus, Mingo’s efforts were thwarted.