As Elections Day draws nearer, members of the public are being urged to check the Official List of Electors (OLE) to ensure not just that they are included but to be sure just where they are registered to vote as some have been unable to have their addresses updated.
The OLE, which contains the names of 660,998 electors, has been through more than nine months of revision and though the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Secretariat has tried to assure the public that all transactions recorded during this period would be reflected in the final list, this is not the case.
Several persons have publicly reported that attempts to transfer their registration from one region to another are not reflected in the OLE. Notably, in each case those affected were one of several members of a household who registered changes of address and while their family members had their registration records updated, they were the odd person out.
“I feel robbed of the right to vote because I will be unable to vote. I can’t travel back there,” Laurel Sutherland told Sunday Stabroek.
Sutherland, who attempted to transfer from Region 9 to Region 3, told this newspaper that approximately a year ago she along with a brother and sister moved to Cornelia Ida and together attempted to transfer their registration records during the curtailed house-to-house registration exercise.
“We were all registered on the same day at home by the same persons,” she noted.
When the revised list of electors was published in January, all three Sutherlands found that their registration had not been changed and following the advice of GECOM they visited the Registration Office at Pouderoyen.
“They told us all we needed to give to them was our names and they would change it so we gave them our names,” she said.
On February 1st, the OLE went live on the Commission’s website (https://www.gecom.org.gy/home/ole) and the Sutherlands once again checked to ensure that their registration records were accurate. While her siblings found good news, Laurel didn’t so she went back to Pouderoyen.
“They said they couldn’t find me in the database and that it was probably because my house-to-house registration had not been completed but I have the pink slip, the same as everyone else,” she said.
Sutherland, who works in Georgetown, lamented the fact that even if she were to contemplate travelling back to the Rupununi to vote, it is an impossible proposition. “The trip takes two days each way and it is expensive,” she shared.
Other persons similarly affected have been expressing their concern on Facebook. Nalini Roopnarine lamented that while she and her husband changed their addresses at the same time, only his registration record was updated, while Patricia McAllister noted that her registration was updated while her daughters was not.
Theresa Chandan noted that she was the only member of her household with an accurate registration record, although the others had visited GECOM with the requested slips as they were advised to do.
Sunday Stabroek contacted GECOM Public Relations Officer Yolanda Ward about the options available to the persons whose records were not updated and she said the OLE is final. “They can write to the Chief Election Officer and the Secretariat will investigate their individual case but the OLE for the March 2, 2020 elections has been certified. From where I sit, there is no option for changes at this time,” she noted.
Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield, when question about the matter on Tuesday, also indicated that each person affected should write the Secretariat.
It is not clear how many persons are affect but numbers released by GECOM suggest that there are over 2,000 transfers which were not recorded.
On January 22nd, members of the Commission told media that there had been approximately 91,000 change-of-address requests made during the truncated house-to-house exercise.
Despite objections from the opposition, GECOM had attempted during the 21 days the RLE was published to record those changes. On January 25th, when the RLE expired 88,876 changes had been recorded, leaving approximately 2,124 registrants who had requested a transfer without same.
