The Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield, this afternoon, submitted a draft vote recount plan to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM). The plan, according to two commissioners, envisages that the recount of the votes cast on March 2, will take some 156 days to be completed.
Opposition-aligned Commissioner, Sase Gunraj has called the duration “untenable”, and has since requested time to study and “rework” the document.
It is already five weeks since Guyana took to the polls and are yet to have the government of their choice installed, as the nation continues to witness the incumbent and the opposition tussle for power, amidst a global pandemic that is now sending more and more Guyanese on the breadline.
Government-nominated Commissioner, Vincent Alexander told media officials, today, that the plan is still under discussion, therefore, no decision has been taken.
He said that Opposition-nominated Commissioner, Sase Gunraj has requested time to study the document and to “rework” the plan. He said that as a matter of principle, an issue should not be made over something that has not been agreed upon. He reminded that the document is a draft one.
Following the comments by the Commissioners, the Secretariat went on the defensive, saying that while it is “cognizant” that the 156 days proposed for the activity “may be quite a lengthy duration in the present circumstance”, the Secretariat had to consider matters of law in relation to the procedures to conduct a recount; approved decisions of the Commission and the current COVID-19 pandemic affecting the health situation of the population.
“In this regard, the Secretariat considered the request by the Commission for each ballot to be projected on screen, examination of the contents of the ballot box i.e. ascertaining the number of electors on the list, the number of electors who voted, counting votes cast for both General and Regional Elections and validation of spoilt, questioned and rejected ballots,” the Secretariat noted.
It then explained how the 156-day duration was arrived at. The Secretariat noted that the estimated time for one ballot box to be counted was projected to be two hours. Three workstations will be utilised for 10 hours per day (9:00hrs -19:00hrs) at a central location to count 2339 boxes.
This means that the three stations will count 15 boxes per day. This translates to 156 days to count 2,339 boxes.
