Allegations of unstamped Disciplined Services votes baseless – LJP leader

…says there is no way to differentiate Disciplined Services votes, irresponsible claim to make

Despite available evidence contradicting its allegations, the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) continues to make them.
One allegation in particular – of Disciplined Services ballots going uncounted, is being rejected by one of the political parties.

In an engagement with the media on Sunday outside the recount site, Liberty and Justice Party (LJP) Presidential Candidate Lenox Shuman called APNU/AFC’s allegation baseless, since there was no way to tell which ballots were from the Disciplined Services after they were intermixed.
“There is also the allegation of the Disciplined Services votes not being counted. That is one of the most irresponsible comments you can make at election time and it is contrary to the facts. When you look at how many Disciplined Services are there, there is no specific pattern as to how it is counted or how it is potentially stamped or not stamped.
“Those are just baseless allegations. There is absolutely no way to tell which vote is a Disciplined Service vote or which vote is a Lenox Shuman vote. Which vote is a Timothy Jonas vote? There is no way to tell, unless I go and write Lenox Shuman on something. There is no other way.
On Sunday, Citizenship Initiative (CI) Presidential Candidate Rae Lam also addressed the issue of unstamped Disciplined Services votes on her social media platform. She claimed that from her investigations, there are a mere two unstamped ballots when one checked all the polling stations in Regions Six, Seven, Eight and Nine, with intermixed Disciplined Services ballots.
“I did a cursory check of ballots rejected for lack of official stamp across Regions Six, Seven, Eight and Nine – these are the totals: a grand two for stations where DS ballots were intermixed. This represents a total of 1044 DS ballots intermixed here,” she had said.
The media has, meanwhile, been making inquiries of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) as to how many unstamped ballots the recount has turned up. Up to press time, that answer has not been forthcoming.
On Saturday, APNU/AFC Campaign Manager Joseph Harmon made a video broadcast in which he claimed that GECOM was yet to address the concerns over the Disciplined Services vote. Harmon had gone on to say that the “outrage of the Disciplined Services is palpable”.
He had also railed against GECOM for not “positively” responding to APNU/AFC’s allegations. According to Harmon, they have written almost a dozen letters to GECOM urging that an investigation be launched before the votes in the other regions are announced. Harmon had even gone on to cite some examples of these discrepancies.
Harmon had claimed that 352 ballots were issued for Ballot Box 7079 (Region Seven – Cuyuni-Mazaruni), Phillipai Primary School), but 377 ballots were discovered in the ballot boxes.
This, however, is not true, as a fact check of the Statement of Recount (SoR) for Ballot Box 7079 shows that 227 votes were actually cast, of which 223 were valid votes. The SoR was completed and certified by all the parties, including an APNU/AFC counting agent, on May 28 – two days before Harmon’s comment.
According to the SoR, the four rejected ballots contained one that was unmarked or voided for uncertainty, one that was marked in a way that the elector could be identified and two where the elector voted for more than one party.
Meanwhile, another example Harmon gave on Saturday of alleged ‘fraud’, which upon checking turned out to be untrue, was that the wrong list was found in Ballot Box 7003 (Region Seven, Regina’s Shop).
Harmon’s claim falls apart when one checks the observation report for that ballot box, which states that box 7002 was mixed up with box 7003 at the time of the recount and that “no other error was found with this box”. Again, this report was signed off by political parties that included APNU/AFC.