Jagdeo disagrees with GECOM’s decision to update list

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) is currently updating its database with names and addresses of persons who made changes during the truncated House-to-House registration exercise and the Claims and Objections period.

However, Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo is afraid that thousands of persons will be disenfranchised on Elections Day as a result of ongoing changes using the “unverified” House-to-House exercise data.

Jagdeo said: “…you cannot change things on the PLE after you’ve gone through the Claims and Objections and issued the Revised List.”

Following the registration exercise in July-August, the fingerprints of several persons, though they were already on the Preliminary List of Electors, did not match during the cross-matching exercise as some were not taken properly.

Jagdeo is contending that the same staff are being used by GECOM to update the current information, leaving much room for more errors.

“These are data entry people…now you’re giving the same people who made all that error…access to make changes in the database that nobody would scrutinize again so just imagine that they go into this database and…you have your address at x place through the Claims and Objections period…in Georgetown and they put you in Berbice through an error on the official list of electors, that means effectively you can’t vote,” he said at his weekly press conference on Thursday.

He noted that his party has had to do multiple field exercises to verify information over the past months.

With no Claims and Objections before the official voters’ list is produced, Jagdeo said there is no way for persons to become aware of the new changes to the list.