THERE has been a notable increase in voter turnout among the Joint Services with 4,317 or 47.48 per cent of the 9,093 ranks casting their votes for the Local Government Elections (LGEs) two Fridays ago.

This marks an 8.47 per cent increase from the 39 per cent turnout that was recorded in 2018, when the LGEs were last held.

Considered a representation of the confidence of the populace in the political process, voters turning out to exercise their franchise is thought to be essential in a functioning democracy.
Statistics on the Joint Services voter turnout were confirmed by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) during a press conference held on Friday at the commission’s Command Centre on Fort Street, Kingston.

Those who voted included ranks of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), Guyana Police Force (GPF) and Guyana Prison Services (GPS).

Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Vishnu Persaud, revealed that of the three, the GPS saw the highest turnout rate, with 239 or 55.58 per cent of the 430 voters casting their ballots thus far. This marked a 13.89 per cent increase compared to what transpired in 2018.

Of the 2,684 eligible GDF ranks, 1,361 or 50.71 per cent turned up to vote. The GPF had the largest number of eligible ranks, with 5,979 entitled to cast a ballot. Of that number 2,717 or 45.44 per cent voted. This is a 4.14 per cent increase over 2018.

Overall, the 2018 LGEs had recorded a 36.3 per cent voter turnout, which represent 208,534 of the 573,923 registered voters turning out to cast their ballots.
This represented a more than 10 per cent decline from the 47.1 per cent voter turnout recorded in the 2016 LGEs.

Contrastingly, General and Regional Elections (GRE) see a much higher voter turnout with the last two elections averaging 71.9 per cent.
A number of ranks who were not able to vote are expected to do so on Monday.

This will include at least eight ranks for whom special arrangements have been made after there was a mix up of ballots during their voting on e-day.
Unlike GREs where all of the ballots are the same, for LGEs voters are issued ballots specific to their Local Authority Area (LAA), with differing LAAs having different List of Candidates in the Proportional Representation (PR) and Constituency components of the LGEs.

During Friday’s press conference, Persaud explained that due to a mix up at a polling place, a rank was issued with a ballot for an LAA that was not his. Not noticing the mix up, the rank proceeded to vote. The rank that the ballot was meant for also voted.

As such, Persaud explained the two ballots were listed as tainted and will be set aside and not counted in the valid ballots on Monday.

Not wanting to disenfranchise the ranks, since the situation was no fault of theirs, the ranks will be given a chance to cast their ballots at their designed polling station in their LAA on Monday. A similar situation occurred at another polling station which affected another six ballots which will also be set aside.

“Decision was taken that we have to ensure that those persons are allowed to vote again and we do everything we can to not place a burden on those persons. They have all agreed to accept our help and go and vote on Monday,” Persaud explained.