Despite objections from polling agents and observers, former Region Four Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo, continued tabulating votes from a spreadsheet to verify votes that had been cast in Region Four during the 2020 General and Regional Elections.

This was the testimony heard by Acting Chief Magistrate Faith McGusty at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday.
Jonathan Yearwood, a former executive member of the political party A New and United Guyana (ANUG) returned to the witness stand and testified that when he arrived at the GECOM Command Centre at the Ashmin’s Building on the morning of March 13, 2020, he and other GECOM representatives were taken to a different room from the one that was designated for the verification process.
He recalled being escorted by police officers to a room that was situated at the back of the building, near the car park.

Upon getting situated in the new location, Yearwood told the court that Mingo informed him and other agents that he won’t be reading from Statements of Poll (SOPs) to verify the votes. Instead, a spreadsheet was created.
“Mister Mingo arrived and told us that we will be doing tabulation, and not a verification and as such that he had tabulated the SOPs, but he wouldn’t be calling from them. He would just use the spreadsheet that he had produced at that time,” Yearwood told the court.

Yearwood said he and other party representatives strongly objected to this.
But despite the objections, Yearwood said Mingo started to call out figures from the said spreadsheet.

Having photographs of SOPs from polling stations, Yearwood noted that he compared the figures Mingo was calling out from his spreadsheet.
He also utilized SOPs that had been published on a website by the People’s Progressive Party/Civic.
The tabulating process continued, despite objections from Yearwood and others present.

When these were made vocal, Yearwood testified that international observers were being threatened and verbally abused by APNU+AFC representative Carol Smith-Joseph.
He further testified that the process was suspended and resumed later that afternoon at GECOM’s Kingston, Georgetown office.
There, Yearwood noted that the setup with a projector made it hard for observers to follow along as the figures on the spreadsheet were ‘blurry’.
Yearwood noted he then addressed Mingo directly to raise his concern about the setup.

He said this prompted Smith-Joseph to begin verbally abusing him and subsequently others. Following this, Yearwood noted that he was arrested and then later released.
Meanwhile, prosecuting attorney Latchmie Rahamat noted that the  evidence-in-chief provided by Mr. Yearwood supports evidence previously given by other witnesses that on the days in question following the March 2, 2020, elections, there was an attempt to rig the elections.

In an invited comment to sections of the local media, she said, “He indicated that on the 14th, when the process had commenced, the SOPs were not being used, and they were objected to.”
The court also heard from an inspector, who had extracted audio recordings from Mr. Yearwood’s mobile device.
He was brought in to tender this evidence to the court.

Rahamat explained that the court now has to make the decision on whether these recordings can be tendered.
It is the prosecution’s case that each defendant had a “critical role” to play in the wilful endeavour to inflate votes for the APNU+AFC, and deflate votes for the PPP/C.

In the weeks that followed the March 2, 2020 vote, Guyana’s judiciary was inundated with multiple applications and appeals filed by various political actors over the electoral process.
The saga lasted five months before a national recount, led by GECOM and a delegation from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), confirmed the PPP/C’s victory and ultimately led to the swearing-in of President Ali on August 2, 2020.

The recount confirmed that the PPP/C won the elections with 233,336 votes against the APNU+AFC coalition’s 217,920.
The initial election results, announced by former CEO Lowenfield, had claimed an APNU+AFC victory.

The APNU+AFC coalition had received 171,825 votes, while the PPP/C received 166,343 votes, according to Lowenfield’s election report.
Following the PPP/C’s return to office in August 2020, criminal charges were filed against the defendants.
GECOM made the decision to terminate the contracts of Lowenfield, Myers, and Mingo in August 2021, after the allegations of fraud came to light.