‘Artificial intelligence’ has more than one meaning

Dear Editor,
Guyanese should be wary of the ‘Google politicians’, for Google gives access to information, but does not teach logic and reasoning. Jonathan Yearwood (founding member of ANUG) proves this in his latest outburst on Facebook: “According to Google, Guyana’s population in Guyana was 786,559 in 2020. According to the ‘Because We Care’ cash grant 2022, there are some 194,000 school children who are therefore not eligible to vote”. Guyana will undertake a new census, which begins on 15th September 2022, and will give us detailed information on the size and composition of the populace when completed.
Google will duly use this information to update its database, and Yearwood can regurgitate with every confidence. To unravel (debunk is now a bad word) Yearwood’s arguments on the size of the Preliminary Voters List (PLE) would take some patience.
Guyanese are eligible to be registered at age 14 on the National Register of Registrants. This is the list from which the PLE is extracted. Only persons who are 18 or older (there is a cutoff date before every election) are eligible to vote; hence, as the date of the election changes, so does the size of the PLE.
“Preliminary” is the important word in PLE, as this list is published in the public domain nationwide (outside GECOM’s Offices) for a period called ‘Claims and Objections’. It is here that Yearwood can object to any person’s eligibility to participate in our democracy.
The PLE is scoured by the large party activists in every area for inclusions and exclusions. One can forgive Yearwood’s lack of understanding of the machinery, as ANUG had Kian Jabour, an executive member who was not on the General Register, the PLE, or Official List of Electors (OLE), and therefore was not eligible to vote in 2020.
When someone’s name is omitted from the PLE, a claim is made. The person presents themselves to the GECOM officials, and is processed for inclusion in the OLE. Objections can be made to any name on a PLE (by a person on the same list or a scrutineer for that district) if a name is on the PLE and he/she is not known to reside at the address that accompanies that name, or is known to have died. The burden is on the objector to provide evidence to support the objection.
Yearwood also claims that names of the deceased populate the list. Yes, we know that persons who are on the List may have migrated and maybe died, but their families have never sent a copy of the death certificate to the GRO for the names to be removed from the List. While families are not precluded from sending death certificates to GECOM, the GRO (General Register Office) produces that certificate, and there is no logical reason for the families to send the GRO a copy; the GRO, as a matter of routine, sends a monthly Death Report to the Commissioner of Registration, which is used to remove names from the General Register.
In the odd event of a name not being removed from the register, not noticed/ objected to by area residents/party scrutineers, and ends up being included in an OLE, there are other systemic methods to prevent someone from using that name to vote: GECOM staff, the folio, ink, party polling day agents and observer missions.
The days of the voting dead are well behind this nation. The systems are near infallible, and would require criminal collusion of at least 5 people at any polling station.
Editor, Jonathan Yearwood’s position on the removal of migrated Guyanese from the General Register/PLE and/or OLE has been dealt with by the Judiciary, who have been consistent that to do so would be unconstitutional. I do, however, respect Yearwood’s right to his opinion, and while I wonder if this position is to disqualify the majority of the ANUG executive from participating in elections, I would suggest he does some thinking before talking, failing which he should stick to pugilistic exploits with his nemesis Carol Smith-Joseph, and leave the politics to those who use more than Google searches to form opinions and represent the rights of ALL Guyanese.
The actual number of schoolchildren eligible for the ‘Because We Care’ grant is 202,613. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, even more so in the age of Google, where ‘artificial intelligence’ has more than one meaning.

Sincerely,
Robin Singh