Gecom has started conducting the mandatory claims and objections exercise of entries on the Preliminary List of Electors (PLE) for the imminent general and regional elections.
The exercise started yesterday and will conclude on June 12, the Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) said in a press release. September 30 is the qualifying date for determining persons who would be 18 years or older, and who could be registered during the claims and objections exercise. “Such persons must be Guyanese citizens by birth, descent, naturalization or are citizens from a Commonwealth country living in Guyana for one year,” Gecom said.
Gecom has posted divisional/sub-divisional extracts of the PLE at two prominent locations in all of the divisions/sub-divisions. A person who would be eligible to vote at elections this year is required to check the respective divisional/sub-divisional lists which are being publicly displayed in the respective registration divisions/sub-divisions and make a claim to entry on the PLE, if he/she is not listed thereon. This process entails completing the relevant application process for registrations that will result in the issuance of a national identification card thereafter.
A person must also apply for a transfer if he/she has moved to a different residential address since he/she was registered; apply for a correction/s if there is/are errors on his/her registration record or ID card and apply for a change of name, if there was a name change/s through marriage or deed poll, for example, after the 2008 house-to-house registration exercise.
A person can also object to the inclusion of the name of any person who is suspected not to have met the eligibility requirements for such inclusion, providing that the objector is registered in the same division/sub-division as the person s/he is objecting to.
Gecom advises any person desirous of conducting any of the said transactions to visit its Temporary Claims and Objections Office responsible for his/her area of residence. It noted too that applications for entry onto the PLE, name changes, corrections and transfers will not be entertained after Thursday, June 9. Also, objections to entries on the PLE will not be entertained after Sunday, June 12.
Source documents
Gecom advises persons who are now registering that they must be in possession of their original birth certificates or a valid Guyana passport; they must also produce their original marriage certificate, in the case of a name change by marriage.
Married women in possession of valid Guyana passports with their husbands’ surnames do not need to provide marriage certificates.
In addition, new registrants must also produce the original deed poll and original birth certificate in the case of a name change by deed poll. In the case of naturalization, the registrant must be in possession of the original naturalization certificate issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs and the original birth certificate or a valid passport. Citizens by descent must also possess the original birth certificate/valid passport and the birth certificate of one parent.
Baptismal certificates, expired passports, photocopies of relevant documents or letters from priests, elders, headmasters, village captains, toshaos and justices of the peace and existing ID cards will not be acceptable as source documents for registration.
Gecom is appealing to all persons eligible for registration during the claims and objections period who do not have the relevant documents to take immediate steps to acquire them in order to register.
Failure to do so will mean that such persons will not be included in the National Register of Registrants, the Voters List for the general and regional elections and will not be issued a national identification card. The Temporary Claims and Objections offices are open weekdays from 3.30 pm to 7 pm and from 10am to 2pm on weekends.
The offices will not operate on national holidays.
