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GECOM may ask Immigration for report to verify claims of migrant voters – Alexander

May 12, 2020 News

Commissioner Vincent Alexander says that the law allows for the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to receive a periodic report from the Chief Immigration Officer with the names of persons who have departed and returned to the country, so that GECOM may determine who is eligible to vote.
This was referred to after numerous claims were raised by the governing coalition of discrepancies during the National Recount of votes. One such issue which arose repeatedly is the claim that the names of migrants were ticked off as having voted on Election Day.
“GECOM may ask them [immigration] to [provide the report], but I think GECOM has to resort to what should normally occur and that is the receipt of that report,” Alexander said.
“The objection to that exercise which is enshrined in the law suggests that when the Chief Registration Officer gets that information (the Immigration report), he can then determine the instances of people who have not returned, how that is dealt with in relation to the compilation of the register of registrants.”
Alexander said, on the outskirts of the National Recount yesterday, that GECOM would have to rely on such a report from Immigration, but it appears as though that required periodic production of the report has not been practiced. Asked why that has not occurred as it should, he said that though there was a discussion some years ago on the need for a national database that GECOM could rely on, a suggestion made to the then Minister of Home Affairs was not well received.
Fellow commissioner, Sase Gunraj had taken issue with agents of political parties appearing to have access to and flouting the personal immigration records of voters during the recount process. Gunraj held that this is a misuse of those persons’ records. Alexander held that though it may be a misuse of the persons’ records, the possibility of a migrant vote being cast suggests that there may have been a misuse of the person’s absence.

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