GECOM decides to tabulate votes from ballot boxes with missing documents

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) on Sunday decided to tabulate the votes from the 29 ballot boxes from the East Coast of Demerara that were found to have missing documents, Public Relations Officer Yolanda Ward informed the media Sunday.

“It was noted that the Commission does not intend to disenfranchise any elector. However, the Commission will continue to investigate the matter,” Ward said.

The issue of the missing documents has been used by the Coalition APNU+AFC to say that the votes from those boxes cannot be validated and that was noted and written on some of the observation reports during the recount.

Of the boxes with missing documents, 28 were already counted and tabulated but the tabulation supervisor was advised to highlight those figures during the livestream on the ongoing tabulation for Region 4 pending a decision of the Commission.

Well-placed sources told the News Room that at a Commission meeting Sunday, the six politically nominated Commissioners and the Chairman Justice (rt’d) Claudette Singh agreed that voters should not be disenfranchised as a result of missing documents.

The missing documents include the list of voters for each polling station. Once a person voted, a tick would have been placed on the left side of the serial number matching their name.

Another missing document from some of the boxes is what is called the counterfoil. The ballot paper came with two portions with a perforation so that when the ballot paper was torn off, a section remained; that remaining section is called the counterfoil.