THE high-profile electoral fraud case continued on Wednesday with Rosalinda Rasul, resuming her testimony regarding alleged manipulation during the 2020 General and Regional Elections.
The case is being heard by acting Chief Magistrate, Faith McGusty, at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts.

The defendants include 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, Roxanne Myers; former District Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo; and GECOM staffers Sheffern February, Enrique Livan, Denise Babb-Cummings, and Michelle Miller.
They collectively face 19 conspiracy charges related to alleged electoral fraud. Prosecutors allege that between March 2, 2020, and August 2, 2020, Lowenfield, Myers, and Mingo conspired with the other defendants to defraud the electorate by declaring a false account of the votes cast in the contentious elections.

They are represented by a defence team that also includes attorneys Nigel Hughes, Eusi Anderson, Ronald Daniels and Darren Wade.
The State is led by Special prosecutor Darshan Ramdhani, KC and Thomas Astaphan, KC, and also attorney-at-law Latchmie Rahamat and several state counsel from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
On Wednesday, as Rasul took the witness stand again to continue her evidence, the proceedings were frequently interrupted due to a series of objections from the defence attorneys.

The frequent disruptions caused the trial to start and stop multiple times, forcing Rasul to step out of the witness box on several occasions.
As the case resumed before lunch, Rasul was cross-examined by the defence attorneys. The defence requested that Rasul submit her curriculum vitae (CV) before the next hearing and sought details about her formal training and qualifications from 2015 onward.

The prosecution did not immediately object to the request, and the court agreed that the document should be provided at the next session.
Following these legal wrangling, the case was adjourned until March 17 at 09:30 hours, when Rasul is expected to continue her testimony.

TUESDAY’S TESTIMONY
On Tuesday, Rasul provided critical testimony about the events at the GECOM Command Centre at Ashmin’s Building during the controversial vote tabulation process.
She detailed how former Returning Officer for District Four (Demerara-Mahaica), Clairmont Mingo, ignored Chief Justice Roxane George’s explicit order to use Statements of Poll (SoPs) and instead relied on unauthorised spreadsheets.
Rasul, who observed the elections on behalf of the American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) Guyana, recounted significant irregularities, including discrepancies in vote tabulation, unexplained procedural changes, and resistance to transparency from GECOM officials.

She testified that on March 4, 2020, the tabulation process was delayed after Mingo was carried into the room and strapped to a chair with a respirator.
Later, Michelle Miller and another woman were introduced to complete the tabulation, but instead of using SoPs, Miller read numbers from a pre-prepared document.

When questioned, former Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield dismissed concerns, stating that the spreadsheet was used for expediency. However, party agents found that 17 out of 21 boxes contained incorrect numbers.
Further irregularities were observed on March 5, 2020, when GECOM staffer Enrique Livan, who was responsible for calling numbers from SoPs, suddenly claimed he was too tired to continue and left the room with a flash drive and a laptop used for data entry.
The witness also recalled the controversial bomb threat that led to a temporary evacuation of observers.

According to Rasul, Mingo later attempted to make a false declaration of results from a stairway, using data derived from spreadsheets instead of the official SoPs.
The declaration was met with strong objections from party representatives and observers, prompting police intervention to prevent further unauthorised actions.
The APNU+AFC Coalition received 171,825 votes, while the PPP/C received 166,343 votes, according to former CEO Lowenfield’s election report.

It was evident from the official findings of the recount process, which was supervised by GECOM and a high-level Caribbean Community (CARICOM) team that the coalition had, in fact, received 217,920 votes, while the PPP/C had received 233,336 votes, which was enough to win.
In order to help the APNU+AFC caretaker administration stay in power, Mingo and the other defendants, allegedly inflated the results in Region Four, as the recount process also revealed.
In August 2021, GECOM made the decision to sack Lowenfield, Myers, and Mingo.