The main responsibility of GECOM is to deliver free and fair elections!

Dear Editor,
The troubled past of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) remains a haunting and traumatic experience for most Guyanese. Lest we forget and be condemned to suffer from the wrath meted out by an unwelcome political dictator, the contaminants of the recent 2015 General and Regional Elections serve as a stark reminder that citizens need to demand and insist on the credibility of all instruments and every electoral process administered.
Of course, the reasons why administrators of the constitutional autonomous body have continuously allowed the infiltration and accommodation for so long has its roots in the need for reform of processes that reflect acceptable levels of transparency and fairness. Notwithstanding, the imbued levels of intolerable tricks of the trade that had been allowed to permeate the GECOM system justify the need for the most stringent monitoring and counterchecks.
Such are the cases which now necessitates polling agents and observers ensure that Statement of Polls are carefully prepared in the most acceptable manner before validation. Polling agents must also ensure that these Statements present a true and correct representation of the voters’ transactions at the particular polling station where all approved parties authenticate them. In fact, the polling agents and observers must record all transactions that take place at each polling station. The Statement of Polls, therefore, must represent an accurate account of all transactions and the genuine results of how many votes each party received at each specific polling station.
Polling agents and observers must be at the polling stations before the Presiding Officer enters the station. All the polling agents and observers must carefully check to see the ballot box is empty before the start of polls. At the end of polls, the counting agents/observers must carefully check and confirm all the votes cast in favour of each participating political party list of candidates. It is also essential that the counted ballots cast be reconciled with the amount of ballot papers issued to the polling station at the beginning, to ensure that when one adds up the ballot cast and the remaining unused ballots papers, it adds up to the original amount.
Reported occurrences in the 2015 General and Regional Elections confirmed that the Presiding Officer did not sign the Statement of Polls at Peters Hall Primary School, which resulted in a frantic search for the PPP polling agent who had already left the station. Further, in the 2018 Local Government Elections, the Presiding Officer in one station at Peters Hall Primary School switched the Greater PPP/C Constituency votes by recording it in favour of APNU. It was thorough the exercised vigilance of the PPP/C leaders that immediate checks at our command centre led to the discovery of the ‘deceptive switching’. Naturally, PPP/C representatives immediately returned the agent to the polling booth where the Presiding Officer had to make the corrections.
Because of the poor and problematic GECOM staff performances in some cases, our agents must be very thorough, focused and alert in checking the details of all transactions. Agents must ensure or request that the Presiding Officer write the statements of Polls to reveal the correct details on the originals as well as the copies. The votes must be, therefore, written in words and ‘numbers’ (alpha and numeric terms).
Further, the Presiding Officer and each polling agent must sign each copy of the Statements of Polls at the station they represent. Tender ballots must be of a different colour to the standard ballots and polling agents are required to make copious notes regarding the use of any ‘tender’ ballot. It is of note that tender ballots approved by the Presiding Officer are not to be placed in the ballot box, nor included in the votes counted at the end of polling.
It is a known fact that most polling agents are thoroughly trained and should be fully prepared to deal with all the Divisions and Sub Divisions where there would be polling stations. Elections Day activities must, therefore, adhere to, and be held in strict compliance with these legislative positions.
Polling agents must give extra attention to ‘rejected ballots’ which has been a pain in all elections. This is perhaps because of GECOM’s inability to conduct proper voter education or the deliberate act by Presiding Officers to declare ballots as being rejected because of their individual interpretations of what constitutes a rejected ballot. Ballots are generally considered rejected for four main reasons. These include an unmarked ballot, a ballot without the 6-digit stamp, a ballot that is cast for more than one party in the same election and a ballot where the intersection of the X is on the line separating two parties in the same election.
Although the Presiding Officer must give each polling agent a fully signed copy of each Statement of Poll at the end of counting, he or she is required to place a valid copy outside of each polling station. The representative agents should also capture digital photographs of this final document using their individual phones where practicable. These actions will help to validate the inherent threats to the Elections scheduled for completion on March 2, 2020, by GECOM.

Sincerely,
Neil Kumar