GEORGETOWN, Guyana--(BUSINESS WIRE)--APNU+AFC, two political parties of Guyana that formed a coalition in 2015, today issued the following statement regarding the recount of ballots in Guyana. On March 2, 2020, the people of Guyana went to the polls to determine their national and regional representation. They did so on a Voter's List of 660,000 so-called registered voters from a population estimated at 780,000, which included a national school population of 260,000.
All previous efforts at re-verification to cleanse the list of the dead and migrated and present a credible list of voters were thwarted by the main opposition party – the People's Progressive Party (PPP). The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) abandoned its effort in 2019 to conduct a house-to-house exercise, which would have resulted in a List of Voters (LOE) consistent with the country's population size.
In the end, on March 2, 2020, GECOM presented an LOE with a total of 660,000 voters, which to most observers was the first red flag in a process that would eventually lead to fraud. It is deemed a statistical impossibility to have such a voter's list against a population of a mere 780,000 inhabitants. In preparing for the elections, therefore, GECOM would have been required to produce and distribute sufficient ballots to satisfy the list of voters in each electoral district.
In this difficult environment President David Granger ordered a total recount of ballots cast under the supervision of a team of scrutineers from CARICOM, the regions’ regional economic community and on May 6, 2020 the recount began.
In respect to the methodology, the gazetted order for the Recount indicated that GECOM, “in exercise of the authority vested in it under Article 162 of the Constitution and pursuant to Section 22 of the Elections Law (Amendment) Act, Chapter 1:03, in implementing its decisions relating to the conduct of the aforementioned recount of all ballots cast at the said elections, including the reconciliation of the:
- Ballots issued with the ballots cast,
- Destroyed, spoiled, stamped and as deemed necessary, their counterfoils/ stubs;
- Authenticity of the ballots and the number of voters listed and crossed out as having voted;
- The number of votes cast without ID cards;
- The number of proxies issued and the number utilized;
- Statistical anomalies;
- Occurrences recorded in the Poll Book.”
The recount process which began under the watchful eyes of observer groups and monitoring teams, both local and overseas, including the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) have been witnessing some amazing discrepancies and outright fraudulent activities that would have caused concerns in any jurisdiction, which pride itself on a democratic process of one-man, one-vote.
Since the start of the national recount, what have we found?
We have found a sophisticated design of fraudulent activities aimed at skimming APNU+AFC votes wherever they can and adding votes to the PPP, even by placing ballots clearly marked for the Coalition inside the opposition PPP/C's envelopes.
From district 1 to 10, the ongoing process has unearthed a plethora of fraud, illegal activities, malfeasance, and outright corruption, which have put the legitimacy of the Guyanese election in question. For illustration:
The counterfoil security coding breached – there have been instances of counterfoil number appearing on multiple ballots, which is an amazing breach of GECOM's security system. Each counterfoil is a unique number and should not be repeated on any other ballot paper.
Missing Poll Book - The Poll Book, which is the official record of activities at the polling station on Election Day has gone missing from hundreds of polling stations, which makes it impossible to determine what transpired on Election Day at each station. There are multiple instances of missing poll books from region 1 to 10.
Nullification of Disciplined Services Vote - the ballot papers of thousands of votes by Guyana's Disciplined Services - the military, Police, Fire and Prisons Services - have been found NOT to contain the official GECOM stamp that presiding officers MUST LEGALLY place on them to make them legal. The Disciplined Services have traditionally voted overwhelmingly for the Coalition or its predecessor party, the People's National Congress (PNC). The missing stamp and disqualification of those ballots would automatically disenfranchise hundreds of men and women in the armed forces, fire service and prison system.
Migration of Ballots – Ballots belonging to one region appearing in another region. One of the safeguards instituted by GECOM as part of the process was a colour coding of ballot papers per region. Each region's ballots had its own colour, and therefore, one of the shocking discoveries at the recount is the instances of votes cast for the APNU+AFC Coalition in one region ending up in ballot boxes of another region.
Unstamped Ballots – from district 1 to 10, the ongoing process has unearthed the use of the six-digit stamp as a weapon to nullify legitimate ballots. In Sophia's district in East Georgetown (Region 4), for example, the recount has revealed the case of 83 ballots with clear markings for the Coalition being rejected as spoilt votes because they were not stamped by the presiding officer.
Total rejected ballots up to one week ago have reached 2,500, all identified as Coalition votes.
Migrated Voters – it is clear from the information that APNU+AFC has provided to GECOM that persons outside of the jurisdiction at the time of the election, have been recorded as voted on March 2, 2020. After presenting the evidence, the Chairman of GECOM at the beginning of June asked the Guyana Police Force which controls immigration to provide her with proof that migrated Guyanese voted on Election Day.
Mr. Leslie James confirmed that 172 persons from an initial list of 207 were not in Guyana when the General and Regional Elections were held on March 2, 2020 and should not have voted. Currently the department is in the process of verifying other lists submitted.
Dead voters – APNU+AFC has provided verifiable proof that deceased persons voted on March 2, 2020. So far, in Electoral Districts One to Five, a total of 41 dead votes were identified.
Voting without ID or Certificate of Employment - The count so far has found 617 cases of Missing Oaths Identities. In another example, there were 715 oaths that cannot be verified.
Boxes without Records - On Thursday, June 4, ballot boxes were discovered without any documents whatsoever - no oaths, poll books, and voters list – absolutely no record. One of the most scandalous behaviours of the PPP/C and small parties is their refusal to sign the observation report confirming that in ballot boxes in Region 10, there were no documentation accompanying the votes.
Over Voting - In a few areas, when ballots boxes were opened and examined in the presence of representatives from all parties and observers, they contained more votes than listed on the LOE. Where did these extra ballots come from and who placed them in the boxes? The total is being compiled for GECOM.
Currently the International media and the diaspora have been bombarded with claims by the PPP that it has won March 2, 2020, General and Regional Elections. The evidence, however, is pointing to well-planned and orchestrated scheme from region one to ten to steal the election. These elections are far from credible, and the Guyanese people deserve better. We await the decision from GECOM on these fraudulent elections.
We note that at the time of writing, the Guyana Elections Commission, the only legal authority on elections in Guyana, has NOT declared a winner.
