BREAKING: Recount of votes expected to start on Wednesday

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) on Sunday agreed on Wednesday, May 6 as the date for the recount to commence of all votes cast on March 2, 2020, well-placed sources have confirmed.

The decision was taken during a statutory meeting of the Commission, chaired by Justice (rt’d) Claudette Singh; in attendance were the six nominated Commissioners from the APNU+AFC and the PPP/C along with the Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield.

The recount is expected to last for 25 days –from 08:00hrs to 19:00h daily- at the Arthur Chung Conference Center.

It was previously determined that the layout can accommodate eight of the recount stations having a maximum of 14 persons and the other two stations can have a maximum of 10 persons.

An expert health team had visited the recount site in light of the global COVID-19 pandemic and listed guidelines for the GECOM team to implement ahead of the process.

These include: all rooms must have a table at the entrance and exit with disposable face masks, hand sanitizers, disposable gloves, disposal hand tissue, foot pressed type-rubbish bins with garbage bags to avoid touching; staff should wash hands every 20-25 minutes; persons must be 3-6 feet apart from each other; disposable/surgical masks should be changed every 30-60 minutes, and persons entering and exiting the building at all points of entry must have their hands sanitize so that they do not bring nor take out any potential infectious substance.

Some 33,000 masks will be needed.

The Elections Commission now has to gazette its official order for the recount before it commences; this is expected to be done Monday.

A three-member CARICOM team is already here to scrutinise to process; they are: Cynthia Barrow-Giles, Senior Lecturer at UWI; Mr John Jarvis, Commissioner, Antigua and Barbuda Electoral Commission; and Sylvester King, Supervisor of the Electoral Commission of St. Vincent.