GECOM issues warning over imposters collecting voter info

…urges citizens to be on lookout, call in Police

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has issued a warning to residents to be on the lookout for persons posing as employees of the election agency, who then go on to request documents from these residents.

This was communicated by GECOM’s Public Relations Officer, Yolanda Ward, and via a notice. In the case of Ward, she noted that GECOM received reports from residents of persons purporting to be GECOM officials.
According to Ward, these ‘officials’ visit homes and offer to conduct transactions as part of the ongoing Claims and Objections exercise (C&O), despite the fact that during C&O, residents visit GECOM’s office and not the other way around.
“GECOM is urging residents to be vigilant and to only conduct transactions at the permanent and temporary GECOM Registration Offices,” Ward noted in communication with members of the media.
While the PRO’s warnings were for the general public, the notice from GECOM specifically advised residents in Tuschen, East Bank Essequibo (EBE), to be on the lookout for persons coming into their community and telling them that house-to-house was illegal.
“Do not accept offers to be registered,” GECOM further advised. “These persons have not been authorised by GECOM and you should not furnish them with any personal information. Please report any instance of such to the nearest police station.”
Last week, Opposition-nominated Commissioner Sase Gunraj told reporters after a meeting that Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield updated them that more than 2100 transactions had been recorded at the time during the C&O exercise.
He further related that they are still trying to get more details on other aspects such as the H2H data, as well as the overseas fingerprint cross-matching before any decisions are taken. According to the Opposition-nominated Commissioner, the encoding (entering data into GECOM’s database) of the H2H data is scheduled to finish by today.
The preceding week, Government-nominated Commissioner Charles Corbin had told reporters that the encoded data will be available for scrutiny before the C&O exercise concludes in November.
GECOM was forced to bring the controversial H2H Registration to a premature end on August 31, by which time it had obtained in excess of 370,000 registrants.
It was then decided that the new data obtained will be merged with the existing National Register of Registrants (NRR) Database – something which the Opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) has been against.