‘No’ to electronics and biometrics in 2025 Guyana elections

Dear Editor,
Just recently, Anil Nandlall, AG and Minister of Legal Affairs, succinctly and definitively commented that “They (the PNC especially), will do everything within their power to compromise and sabotage any electronic machinery or technological device employed in the electoral process…and yes, they will try to blackout the whole country, if they think it will help them rig the next election.” (Kaieteur News’ “PPP’s capture of GECOM continues unabated,” Oct 31, 2024, by Desmond Trotman, Charles Corbin and Vincent Alexander (GECOM Commissioners).
So, for me, based on the last Guyana Elections (March 2020), I will not be surprised if these ‘barefaced attempted riggers’ resort to utter violence; as they are not only in denial, but in a mood and mode of desperation.
Now, concerning what the AG said, I submit that it is not only about the potential ‘humbugging’ of the PNC, but about ‘best practices’ as well. Even in the United States of America, citizens keep urging elected officials to choose optical scanners that count ‘voter-marked paper ballots.’ While it may seem old-fashioned in a high-tech world, election integrity experts recommend this voting system as the most effective way to achieve security, accuracy, verifiability, accessibility, and resiliency.
Let me quote from the US (How to Choose the Best Voting System): Voter-marked paper ballots put as little technology between the voter and their vote as possible, preventing the possibility of errors due to machine malfunction, miscalibration, or hacking. Paper ballots are reliable. Even if power is lost and machines fail, voters can still vote. No wonder, then, that Nandlall sought to add ‘some necessary perspective’ regarding his unambiguous utterance on electronic voting’, which he is against.
I add from the article ‘Online Voting Threatens the Security of Elections’, where it reads: “There is currently “no known technology that can guarantee the secrecy, security, and verifiability of a marked ballot transmitted over the Internet.” This was the word from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2018 report, Securing the Vote: Protecting American Democracy.
It reiterated that “All internet voting systems and technologies, including email and mobile voting apps, are currently ‘inherently insecure.’ There is no technical evidence that any internet voting technology is safe, or can be made so in the foreseeable future; (as) all research to date demonstrates the opposite. Thus, on April 9, 2020, more than 60 scientists and election experts signed a letter to governors, and secretaries of state and state election directors, urging them to refrain from allowing the use of any internet voting system.
Editor, best practices for voting must be pursued relentlessly, and more so as the AG recalled Guyana’s dismal history in pointing out that “Guyana is not a normal place.” Reason: “We have major political parties that have succeeded in massively rigging elections for over half of a century. It is beyond dispute that the 1968, 1973, 1980 and 1985 Elections were stupendously rigged by the People’s National Congress (PNC). Further, it is equally beyond doubt that desperate attempts were made by that very Party to rig the 1992, 1997 and 2001 Elections.”
Let’s remember that ‘prevention is better than cure’. Guyana must not endure another post-March 2020 scenario. Let’s bear in mind, too, that when a hacker steals money online, the theft is easily discovered.
Online voting poses a much tougher problem: lost votes are unacceptable. Unlike paper ballots, electronic votes cannot be “rolled back” or easily recounted. The twin goals of anonymity and verifiability within an online voting system are largely incompatible with current technologies. I recall that Russian state-sanctioned hackers brought almost all of Estonia’s online activities to a halt in 2007.
And just for humour: The March 2020 Guyana Elections were under the aegis of the APNU/AFC Government. So, any criticism of the GECOM mechanism by them is an admission of how incompetent they were, and still are.
Finally, their now infamous SOPs may likely prove ‘les bombes dans leurs propres poches.’

Sincerely,
Hargesh B Singh