– says declarations produced variations when compared to SOPs

AS the electoral fraud trial recommenced on Monday, forensic auditor, Terrence Jaskaran, told the court that his examination of certified Statements of Poll (SOPs) and Form 24 declarations produced significant variations in the 2020 General and Regional Elections, including changes to the overall vote margins between the major political parties.
Jaskaran, who continued his evidence before Principal Magistrate Faith McGusty, testified that his conclusions were numerical in nature and focused on identifying differences between the certified copies of SOPs provided to him and the declarations.
He said his analysis of the certified SOPs from all 10 regions showed the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPPC) with significantly more votes than the APNU+AFC in the General Election.
However, Jaskaran said that if the March 13, 2020 declarations had replaced the figures contained in the certified SOPs, the resulting net variation would have been approximately 22,000 votes, which would have placed APNU+AFC about 7,000 votes ahead of the PPPC.
He said the March 5 declarations produced a similar effect, with APNU+AFC showing 20,243 more votes than in the certified SOP tally, while the PPPC showed 2,959 fewer votes.
According to Jaskaran, the combined effect was a variation of approximately 23,000 votes, which would have changed the overall position from a 15,000-vote PPPC lead to an approximately 7,000-vote APNU+AFC lead.
The witness also outlined discrepancies in the Regional Elections.
The March 13 declarations produced a variation of approximately 21,000 votes and would have resulted in an APNU+AFC lead of about 6,000 votes, he said.
Jaskaran’s evidence also highlighted differences in Region Four. For the March 5 declaration, he said APNU+AFC recorded 20,897 more votes than were contained in his tally of the certified SOPs.
Against this backdrop, Jaskaran told the court that his methodology involved extracting the figures from the available certified SOPs, entering the results for each political party into an Excel spreadsheet and comparing the totals with the Form 24 declarations.
However, under cross-examination by defence attorney Nigel Hughes, Jaskaran acknowledged that he had not investigated the integrity of the documents provided to him or the causes of the discrepancies identified.
“My conclusions were basically numerical in nature,” Jaskaran said during his evidence.
He also agreed that when he was retained, his assignment was as a forensic audit consultant and that the specific work requested by the Guyana Police Force, involved a tabulation exercise, analysis of certified SOPs against Form 24 declarations and a variance analysis and report.
Hughes also questioned Jaskaran about evidence concerning the removal of a GECOM server by its IT Manager at that time. Jaskaran said he was not aware of the circumstances at the time he conducted his analysis and had only subsequently seen headlines about the matter online.
The prosecution objected to Hughes putting aspects of Giddings’ evidence to Jaskaran, with the court hearing exchanges over the circumstances surrounding the server.
To this end, Jaskaran maintained that his work was confined to the numerical comparison of the documents supplied to him and did not extend to determining how any discrepancies occurred.
The case is expected to continue today with other witnesses set to take the stand.
The forensic auditor last week told the court that his analysis of the certified SOPs showed significant differences when compared to the March 5 and March 13 Form 24 declarations for Region Four.
For the March 5 declaration, APNU+AFC recorded 136,458 votes compared with 116,215 in the SOP tally, a variance of 20,243 votes, while the March 13 declaration recorded 136,057 votes, a difference of 19,842 votes. The PPP/C, meanwhile, had 80,288 votes in the SOP tally, compared with 77,329 in the March 5 declaration.
The election fraud trial centres on allegations surrounding the tabulation and declaration of results from the 2020 polls, a process that led to months of political uncertainty and legal battles, before a final declaration was made five months after election day.
Those on trial include former Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield, former Deputy CEO Roxanne Myers, former Region Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo, former Health Minister Volda Lawrence and People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) member Carol Smith-Joseph. Also, before the court are former GECOM employees Michelle Miller, Sheffern February, Enrique Livan and Denise Babb-Cummings.
The defendants collectively face 19 charges, including conspiracy to defraud and misconduct in public office. All have pleaded not guilty and were released on cash bail.
The prosecution, led by King’s Counsel Darshan Ramdhani, contends that the accused played critical roles in efforts to inflate votes in favour of the then APNU+AFC, while reducing votes cast for the PPP/C. Following a five-month period of litigation and a Caribbean Community (CARICOM)-supervised national recount, the PPP/C was declared the winner of the elections with 233,336 votes to APNU+AFC’s 217,920.