Election COI: GECOM officials used spreadsheet that inflated APNU/AFC votes, deflated other parties’ figures – Sase Singh testifies

…IT Manager says DCEO ordered him to leave server, documents now missing behind during bomb threat

As the Commission of Inquiry continues into the March 2020 elections, Sasenarine Singh, who served as a People’s Progressive Party/Civic scrutineer, testified on Thursday that there were major discrepancies found after the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) officials changed the process used to verify the Statements of Poll (SOPs) of District Four – the Demerara-Mahaica region.
Singh told the Commission that he was a supernumerary agent for the PPP/C and on March 4, 2020 after former Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo took ill and had to be escorted from the Region Four Command Centre at the Ashmin’s Building by medical officials, the then Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield provided two new Deputy Returning Officers (DROs) to continue the verification process.
However, Singh recalled that there was a “fundamental difference” with the process after the two GECOM officials were using pre-prepared spreadsheets and not the SOPs, as was done prior, to verify the votes. He said that Lowenfield had explained that this new method would add efficiency to the process.
“He said it’s more administratively efficient to use this spreadsheet to report to the nation,” Singh recounted.

But he disclosed that he had no idea what was on the spreadsheets, how they were prepared, by whom, using which data and when.
Despite objections by the agents from the various political parties, Singh said the GECOM officials continued using the spreadsheets to reconcile their figures with that of the SOPs in possession of the party agents and observers present. Copies of these SOPs are given to agents of political parties and accredited observers at the Polling Station after votes are counted. The stakeholders then use their copies to verify figures being used by the Returning Officers to ascertain the votes from each district.
During this verification process, however, stakeholders continuously observed discrepancies between the figures being called out from the spreadsheets and those contained in 17 out of 21 SOPs verified.
“The first 21 SOPs that I had in my possession from East Bank [Demerara – one of the four sub-districts in Region Four] 17 of them were materially different from the numbers being called by the GECOM people from the spreadsheet…”
“Strangely enough, everyone was a casualty except the APNU/AFC. Of course, the party that had the biggest casualty was the PPP/C. So, what was happening, they were deflating everybody’s number except the APNU/AFC. And the APNU numbers were being inflated,” Singh testified.
According to Singh, this led to loud outbursts and objections by the party agents resulting in CEO Lowenfield intervening.
He noted that while Lowenfield did not enquiry from the DROs where the figures on the spreadsheets were derived from, he did conduct an exercise with a sample of three SOPs from the 21 and reverting to the original procedure during which the discrepancies with the spreadsheet numbers were confirmed.
“[The CEO used] the original SOPs in the possession of GECOM and compared it with the SOPs that the representatives had, and… the GECOM SOP reconciled exactly with the three SOPs that I had in my possession… The spreadsheet was very wrong,” he added.
Singh noted that at that point Lowenfield acknowledged the discrepancies on spreadsheet and left to go talk to the Election Commission. He then returned later that evening and indicated that a decision was taken to revert to using the SOP for the verification process.
During his testimony, Singh also recalled that the following day, RO Mingo returned to the Ashmin’s Building on March 5, 2020 and attempted to declare the results for District Four, which was divided into four sub-districts since the Demerara-Mahaica region is largest voting district in the country.
But, according to Singh, at the time, none of the sub-districts were completed. In fact, the verification of South Georgetown and East Bank Demerara were incomplete, while work had not even started to verify the results for the North Georgetown and East Coast Demerara sub-districts.
“[Mingo] came into the room, everyone was quiet at that point in time, and he said that I will now be declaring the results for District Number Four with the spreadsheet count… After he said that statement, he continued talking but you couldn’t hear him because the room was extremely loud,” Singh told the COI.
Leave it! Leave it!
Meanwhile, also taking the stand on Thursday was GECOM’s Information Technology (IT) Manager, Aneal Giddings, who in charge of the Tabulation Centre, where the CEO’s copies of SOPs were being digitalised after being verified with certified copies from the various ROs across the country.
Giddings recalled that on March 5, 2020 at about 10:45h, he and his staff in the Tabulation Centre, which is separate from the area where the District Four votes were being reconciled, were informed that there was a bomb threat to the building and that they should evacuate.
The Manager said they immediately complied with the exception of his deputy, who remained to back-up the data they had compiled thus far on a flashdrive after which he also left.
While they were outside the building at a muster point, Giddings said he received a call from the then Deputy Chief Elections Officer (DCEO), Roxanne Myers, asking if he processed a back-up and to handover the flashdrive.
The Manager noted that while the DCEO’s request was abnormal, he complied and handover the flashdrive, which has been missing since.
He went onto recall that while they were still outside, he made a decision to return to the building to power off the server and removed it from facility for its protection. This, he explained, is in keeping with protocols outlined in GECOM’s IT Division Disaster Recovery Plan, which allows for the removal of servers from premises in certain situations. He told the commission that a bomb threat was an appropriate situation to apply that protocol.
However, Gidding related that while in the process of removing the device, the DCEO entered the tabulation centre and after he informed her of what he was doing, Myers ordered him to leave the server in its place and evacuate the building.
“I removed it nonetheless… She was there and I think she witnessed me walking out with it… She was adamant. I think she repeated her instructions “Leave it! Leave it!” but I did not respond after that,” the witness recalled.
That server contained data on tabulation process that was ongoing. Giddings said Myers did not indicate why she wanted him to leave the server and that he had no time to enquire given the emergency of the situation.
The IT Manager said he then secured the server in his vehicle in the parking lot at Ashmin’s before returning to muster point opposite the building.

Clear of threat
Shortly after, he received a call from the DCEO, who instructed him to return the server and power it back on.
“I enquired whether the building was clear of the threat. She repeated her instruction… No response [from her on whether the building was safe]. The instruction was repeated and then the call ended… I did not comply,” Gidding testified.
He went onto say that after sometime, he observed persons re-entering the building and went to enquire if it was clear of threat but was confronted by DCEO, who again hurled instructions at him to return the server.
At that point, Giddings said he saw the GECOM Chair, Ret’d Justice Claudette Singh, and sought her guidance. He said the Chair indicated that he should return to the building with the server and his staff, which he did.
The server was powered back up and while they were preparing to resume the tabulation process, the DCEO entered the room and announced that the process be halted since there was a breach of procedures.
“She informed the staff that there was a breach of protocol against the instructions of the Secretariat and that the server was removed from the facility, and the process will therefore be halted,” Giddings said.
He added that Myers then instructed the staff to go home, which the complied with except for himself and his deputy.
“After I observed the state of the centre – we would have had Statements of Poll… in various areas of the centre – and I don’t think that I could have simply walked out knowing that those documents were signed for my staff under my command and were not signed out to where it was intended to go. So, I felt the need to stick around and organize and categorize and secure those documents inclusive of the equipment and the data, the server so that I could leave the place in a state where I had no more involvement, and I was safe in my mind that these things were secured because these were Statements of Poll and data from statements of poll…[they were of] national and critical importance,” informed the Commission.
With regards to the server, Giddings explained that he placed masking tape around it and placed markings on it in such a way that it would be detected if someone were to tamper with the device.
But while in the process of doing his, another call was received from the DCEO who asked him if he was doing something unlawful with the SOPs.
“I said no, I was simply assembling them to be sent to her office… She responded very aggressively and said to leave the centre… that the Chief Accountant will come lock up the facility,” he indicated.
At that point, the IT Manager said he was almost complete with organising and securing the documents in the room so they finish off and left.
Giddings said when he returned to Ashmin’s Building the following morning, it was locked up and cordoned off with party representatives and observers standing outside. He then left to go to his office at GECOM’s head office in Kingston.
Items missing
According to the IT Manager, he did not return to Ashmin’s until March 23, 2020 and upon entering the tabulation centre, “I had observed that several items were missing… I retrieved the remainder of the items that were there and when I returned to the headquarters, I wrote to the CEO informing him of my observations.”
Giddings said there were no responses from the CEO on this matter despite it being a serious occurrence. He added too that there were about 17 cameras in the centre but they were not installed by GECOM and therefore, he could not say the location of the footage. (G8)