THE highly anticipated electoral fraud trial, involving key opposition political figures and former senior elections officials, is expected to continue today, Tuesday, September 17, 2024, after several postponements. The proceedings are expected to commence at 09:30hrs.
The trial has garnered national attention due to the gravity of the charges, which stem from allegations of vote manipulation during the 2020 general and regional elections.
The trial was originally scheduled to resume on August 7, 2024, but was delayed owing to the medical leave of Senior Magistrate Leron Daly, who was granted 30 days off to recover from an illness. This resulted in a postponement of the fourth day of hearings, which had been initially set for August 5, 2024. The trial first began on July 29, 2024.
The case will be called this morning for reports.

Charged are People’s National Congress/Reform (PNC/R) activist, Carol Smith-Joseph; former Health Minister under the A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) government, Volda Lawrence; former Chief Elections Officer (CEO) at the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Keith Lowenfield; former Deputy CEO at GECOM, Roxanne Myers; former District Four (Demerara-Mahaica) Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo; and GECOM employees Sheffern February, Enrique Livan, Denise Babb-Cummings, and Michelle Miller.
They are collectively facing 19 conspiracy charges related to alleged electoral fraud. It is alleged that between March 2, 2020 and August 2, 2020, Lowenfield, Myers and Mingo, while in Georgetown, conspired with the other six defendants and others to defraud the electorate of Guyana by declaring a false account of the votes cast at the highly contentious elections.

The case centres on accusations that the defendants inflated or facilitated the inflation of the vote count for Region Four, Guyana’s largest voting district, allegedly handing the APNU+AFC coalition an illegitimate victory.  While the initial results declared by former CEO Lowenfield, showed the APNU+AFC with 171,825 votes and the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) with 166,343 votes, a recount and investigation revealed a different outcome. The recount, which was supervised by GECOM and a high-level Caribbean Community (CARICOM) team, found that the APNU+AFC had actually received 217,920 votes, while the PPP/C received 233,336 votes. The recount process confirmed that the PPP/C had won the elections by a margin of over 15,000 votes.

The state’s case, led by King’s Counsel Darshan Ramdhani, is supported by a significant amount of evidence, including flash drives containing certified copies of Statements of Poll (SoPs) and Statements of Recount (SoRs), as well as witness statements from 80 individuals.
Video interviews and bundles of key documents have also been disclosed to the defence. Several high-profile witnesses have already testified, including Minister of Local Government and Regional Development Sonia Parag, and Head of the Diaspora Unit Rosalinda Rasul.
The other prosecution witnesses include Forensic Investigator Rawle Nedd, and former Region Four Police Commander Edgar Thomas. According to the prosecution, Mingo and other officials deliberately manipulated the results in Region Four to keep the APNU+AFC caretaker administration in power, thus undermining the democratic process.

The start of this trial has been plagued by delays since charges were filed in late 2020.
Requests for adjournments by the defence, along with unforeseen issues such as Magistrate Daly’s medical leave, have slowed the judicial process. The defence attorneys include Nigel Hughes, Ronald Daniels, Eusi Anderson and Darren Wade.
GECOM made the decision to dismiss Lowenfield, Myers, and Mingo in August 2021, after the allegations of fraud came to light. Despite this, the trial has faced several hurdles in progressing, with today marking the latest attempt to move the case forward.