Preparation of List of Electors for General and Regional Elections

Dear Editor,
Relative to the ongoing controversy associated with the intended amendment of the current Revised List of Electors (RLE) by changing the addresses of approximately 91,000 voters, the following points are delineated to give clarity on whether the Commissioner of National Registration (CNR) is empowered with legal authority to make any such change.
The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) is statutorily charged with preparation of the Official List of Electors in compliance with the following steps: –
1.      Establish a qualifying date by which any person who is registered in the National Register of Registrants (NRR) will be eligible to vote at the elections being prepared for.
2.      Extract the Preliminary List of Electors (PLE) from the NRR, in accordance with Section 14 of the National Registration Act, Cap 19:08, using the qualifying date established by GECOM.
3.      The PLE must be posted at two conspicuous locations within each Division/Subdivision for public scrutiny, and as the basis for the conduct of a Claims and Objections (C&O) exercise.
4.       Conduct a C&O exercise in accordance with Section 14 of the National Registration Act, Cap 19:08. During this exercise, eligible persons can apply specifically to make (i) claims for entry into the PLE, (ii) changes to their existing particulars eg name(s) and gender, transfers – Change of address, and (iv) objections to names not qualified for including in the PLE eg deceased or underaged.
5.      Production of a Revised List of Electors (RLE) is the outcome of the C&O exercise.
6.      The RLE must be (statutorily) published for 21 days for public scrutiny to determine accuracy.
7.      Consequent upon the discovery of any error in the RLE, which might have occurred due to inadvertence, the CNR is empowered by Regulation 37 of the National Registration (Residents) Regulations to make corrections accordingly.
8.      Subsequent to the publication of the RLE for 21 days, and the application of corrections to any errors which might have occurred through inadvertence, the Chief Election Officer, who is also the CNR, certifies the list as the Official List of Electors.
Ms Yolanda Ward, Public Relations Officer of GECOM has penned a letter which was published in the Stabroek News of Friday, January 24, 2020, titled “GECOM satisfied that changes to Revised List of Electors is being done lawfully”.
In her letter, Ms Ward posits that Regulation 37 provides that, “If within the period of twenty-one days after he had certified lists, the Commissioner is satisfied that any entry or omission in any list as revised pursuant to Regulation 35 is incorrect through inadvertence in the course of such revision, he shall make or cause to be made the requisite correction to that list and such copy thereof as is open for inspection at any registration office and the Commissioner shall give to the person to whom such correction relates notice thereof, which may be sent by registered post to his last known address.” In so doing, Ms Ward seeks to justify the proposed act of changing approximately 91,000 addresses in the RLE.
However, Ms Ward did not touch on the provisions of Regulation 35 to which she refers in her letter although she mentioned that Section 37 has to be operationalised pursuant to Section 35.
Under the caption “Preparations of revised lists on determination of claims and objections”, the following is what Regulation 35 of the National Registration (Residents) Regulations provide:
“The Commissioner shall revise the list (including that for each registration division) by way of the annexation thereto of supplementary lists in such form as determined by the Commissioner containing all such changes and additions to the list (including that for any registration division) as are necessary from time to time by virtue of the final determination of Claims and Objections or by virtue of the Commissioner being satisfied that at the time of the publication of the preliminary list entries thereof were omitted and a supplementary list, together with the list or that for any division shall constitute the revised list or that for the respective division, as the case may be, at the date of the latest of such supplementary list.”
In view of the preceding paragraph, it must be obvious that in recognition of Regulation 35, Regulation 37 authorises the Commissioner of Registration to make corrections only to errors which occurred through “inadvertence”, specifically relevant to the relevant C&O exercise, or an omission which might have occurred at the time of the extraction of the PLE.
It is important to note that the order gazetted by GECOM for the conduct of Claims and Objections in preparation of the List of Electors for the upcoming elections was very specific in listing the type of transactions which could have been conducted therein.  Treating with data from House-to-House Registration was not included in that order.
The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines “inadvertence” as (i) the fact or action of being inadvertent, and (ii) a result of inattention: oversight.  Accordingly, it should be obvious that the adding of data which were not captured during the C&O exercise, or which were omitted at the time of the extraction of the PLE from the National Register of Registrants cannot be classified under the heading of “inadvertence”.  Hence such data would be inapplicable to the RLE.
In view of their foregoing, the addition of any data from the last House-to-House Registration exercise would be ultra vires, since none of that data would have been associated with the extraction of the PLE and C&O exercise in any way shape or form.

Sincerely,
Name provided