Police request information from APNU/AFC on 2020 voters’ fraud allegations

Following the request of the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) for the Guyana Election Commission (GECOM) to forward its claims of illegal voters at the 2020 General and Regional Elections to the Police, the coalition is now being required to provide additional information, so the investigation can move forward.

This was revealed by GECOM in a statement on Wednesday, in which it explained that the Guyana Police Force (GPF) now required the addresses of these voters that APNU/AFC had claimed were either dead or out of the jurisdiction and therefore, could not have voted in 2020.
GECOM explained that since it was the custodian of the National Register of Registrants Database (NRRDB) which contained personal information of all registrants, the Commission could not release such information to the GPF owing to legal confidentiality issues.

“At the request of the APNU/AFC, the Chairperson of GECOM, Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh on 28th September, 2022 forwarded to the GPF and the General Register Office (GRO), the information sent by the APNU+AFC in relation to allegations of voters’ impersonation during the 2020 General and Regional Elections. In this regard, the GPF has since requested that the addresses of the alleged persons to be provided.”
“Accordingly, the Commission takes this opportunity to inform that its Chairperson, Justice Claudette Singh has since written to the Chief Scrutineer of APNU+AFC, Ms Carol Smith-Joseph requesting that the APNU+AFC provide the necessary information so that the GPF can commence its investigation into the allegations of voters’ impersonation,” GECOM further explained in its statement.

Hands tied
GECOM noted that while it was committed to ensuring that the concerns raised by the APNU/AFC are adequately addressed and prioritised, its position as the custodian of the NRRDB meant its hands were tied from providing the information.
The APNU/AFC, through its Chief Scrutineer, had previously sent a letter to GECOM seeking an investigation into and public disclosure of alleged voter impersonation at the 2020 General and Regional Elections.
In the letter, the Opposition made a number of demands when it comes to the probe into voter fraud at the last election. For one, it demanded that all information on voter impersonation be forwarded to the Police and the General Registration Officer. Additionally, it demanded that any verified reports of voter impersonation be publicly released.
The coalition had also called for GECOM to do an internal probe into the matter, which it claimed the electoral body had discontinued in 2020, as well as take steps to prevent any potential voter impersonation in the future.
However, GECOM Commissioner Sase Gunraj has already debunked this and noted that GECOM did convey all the names APNU/AFC submitted to it, to the relevant authorities for verification. Moreover, Gunraj has pointed out the legal impossibility of GECOM doing investigations of its own.
Additionally, Attorney General Anil Nandlall, SC., has already asked the Police to investigate the documents of alleged voter fraud, which APNU had provided to GECOM after the March 2020 General and Regional Elections.
At a recent statutory meeting, GECOM had voted to release these very documents, which had been requested by Nandlall to investigate Opposition claims of rigging at the 2020 elections, notwithstanding efforts by the Opposition-nominated Commissioners to block this.
In a previous edition of his programme “Issues in the News”, Nandlall had pointed out that back in 2020, when APNU/AFC first made its erroneous claims, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) did investigations of its own. During its investigations, the PPP/C was able to find many of the persons that APNU/AFC claimed were out of the jurisdiction or dead.
In fact, at the time many of those persons had come forward to protest against and dispute APNU/AFC’s claims. <<<Guyana Times>>> featured several such persons, who had been accused by the then ruling party of being either dead or out of the jurisdiction, when their vote was recorded.
During a previous Office of the Leader of the Opposition press conference, however, Opposition Member of Parliament (MP) and shadow Attorney General Roysdale Forde, SC, had admitted that some of the information the party had submitted to GECOM for verification, was, indeed, inaccurate. However, he had urged that all the information be verified. (G3)