Use of truncated, unverified H2H Registration data highly questionable

Dear Editor,
GECOM’s consideration of the use of selected data from the ‘truncated unverified’ House to House (H2H) Registration is unacceptable. Aside from the legally binding obligations related to the update of the list using the Claims and Objections approach, many other strong justifications are evident. These points to the continuous frivolous approach and excuses to effect delays by the abusive Granger-led fallen APNU/AFC Government.
It is widely known that Government Commissioners at GECOM have continued to press for the use of the data, although it is obvious that they have a clear awareness of the surreptitious initiation and biased conduct of the H2H. The GECOM Secretariat has acquiesced and as required, moved to test the new list against the National Register of Registrants (NRR). The cross-matching of the bio-data from persons GECOM claims to have registered during this highly prejudicial exercise realised shocking and appalling results. Sixty thousand questionable names did not match providing reasons for limitless questions.
The new Chairperson, Justice retired Claudette Singh needs to have hands of steel as she moves to steady a seriously troubled GECOM towards the delivery of demanded free and fair elections. She has to deal with the inherited consequences of the unauthorised ‘back-dated order’ of the clearly unfit former Chairman Patterson, to conduct the H2H Registration, which Keith Lowenfield recklessly imposed on our people.
We now witness the unnecessary accommodation at meetings of the Commission addressing issues of a list riddled with factual inaccuracies including persons who could not have been found at stated addresses, and persons at those addresses who are unaware of the identities of some of these persons, misspelling of names and erroneous biographic data.
GECOM reported that they registered some three hundred and seventy thousand persons before the Chairperson Justice Claudette Singh halted the unacceptable H2H. This was to give way for the legitimate Claims and Objections in lieu of the necessity for expedience, given the fact that the No-Confidence Motion was ruled as properly passed by the Caribbean Court of Justice and that the Constitution had to be upheld. As required, GECOM extracted the Preliminary Voters’ List from the National Register of Registrants and after careful scrutiny by the PNC and PPP scrutineers, it was expected that GECOM would have already put out the Revised List of Electors.
When will we have the RLE? The big anomaly is that with the data from the “truncated” H2H, sixty thousand “hits” exist that are considered as duplicates and this is indeed very serious. GECOM informed the public that GEMALTO, the International Digital Security Company, revealed that 60,000 forms did not, “attract the hit”; this means that that they were new names not the on the National Register of Registrants Database, (NRRDB).
Subsequently, GECOM is trying to inform the public that they found seventeen thousand (17,000) names that were not accepted to be on the database. GECOM is not trustworthy and this nation must not accept GECOM’s findings. Further, GECOM is trying to hoodwink the nation by telling our people that twenty-three thousand names were persons under 18, while the remaining twenty thousand (20,000) would be checked.
This is a serious matter and no sample survey must be tolerated as every name has to be properly verified to the satisfaction of all parties. We are now hearing that GECOM does not want to be a part of the rechecking of the 20,000 apparent new names, which justifies the suspicion of significant malfeasance. This is nonsense and with all the untrustworthy people who did that unverified H2H, it is time for GECOM to put aside the truncated H2H Registration data and move the process with what we have.
On another front, the Guyana Court of Appeal commenced the hearing of the appeal filed by the Attorney General against Chief Justice (ag) Roxane George’s decision in the H2H Registration in the legal challenge filed by Christopher Ram. In this regard, the Chief Justice essentially ruled among others that GECOM could not remove persons properly registered which could not be ‘willy-nilly,’ outside the proper constitutionally abridged procedures under Section 159.
As expected, the Attorney General was at his best in proffering irrelevant, erroneous and frivolous arguments to the Court. Among the arguments put forward, were the following:
1. That GECOM, the Government and the international community are anxiously awaiting the ruling of the Court in this matter because it is this ruling, which will direct GECOM to resume the H2H Registration exercise and to order GECOM to use the data generated from the completed exercise to prepare the Official List of Electors (OLE) for the next elections;
2. That the Court must take into account “that the whole world knows that the current list being used by GECOM is bloated”;
3. That the current list being used by GECOM excludes tens of thousands of young people, who were registered for the first time under the House-to-House registration exercise, which was aborted and tens of thousands more are to be registered;
4. That the ruling of the Chief Justice (ag) permits overseas voting, which was abolished in Guyana.
While not being a legal luminary, it is quite simple for the ordinary mind to recognise that it is GECOM that aborted the H2H Registration exercise and not Chief Justice (ag) George. Additionally, that the compilation of the Preliminary List of Electors (PLE), the Revised List of Electors (RLE) and the Official List of Electors (OLE) is not a function of the Court. One can, therefore, clearly rationalise the preposterously imbued nature of this appeal, which seeks to reverse everything that GECOM has done thus far to advance the electoral process; and runs counter to the President’s Proclamation that elections will be held on March 2, 2020.
It was noteworthy that the Appeal Court agreed and upheld the arguments of Mr Nandlall against the frivolity that the PNC continues to advance and direct at a high cost to taxpayers through all of the agents. It is expected that the appeal is now confined to whether the Chief Justice (ag) was wrong in her pronouncement that names should not be removed from the NRR, except in accordance with the Constitution.
Cognisance has to be taken of the overwhelming cost taxpayers bare at the imposition of a desperate time-wasting agenda, which is now turning out to be a recipe for widespread civil unrest.

Sincerely,
Neil Kumar