Dear Editor,
Further to my letter in yesterday’s Sunday Stabroek “Mr. Alexander cannot escape partial responsibility for any alleged failure to cleanse the list of dead persons” which was responding to that of Vincent Alexander’s in the Stabroek News of 11/19/2022 headed “No mechanism has been activated to remove dead persons from the voters’ list”, it is important to emphasis that there is no nexus between the presence of the names of dead persons on the voter’s list and fraudulent voting.
Mr. Alexander makes a gargantuan leap by suggesting that the presence of dead persons on the list results in fraudulent voting, presumably, by voter impersonation, as it is obvious that dead persons cannot vote. This is an unfounded and fanciful conclusion, which Mr. Alexander’s political party continues to make and propagandise as the basis for their loss at the March 2020 elections. They continue to peddle the excruciatingly nonsensical narrative that some 15,000 ballots were cast at the 2020 Elections in the names of deceased/migrant persons on the list by impersonators on E-Day. How this monumental feat of thousands of persons voting multiple times could have occurred without being detected by APNU/AFC leaders/ activists and supporters, members of the public, Election Observers, the Press, the Guyana Police Force, the Presiding Officers, Assistant Presiding Officers, Polling Clerks, Polling Agents for each political party, and indeed, the entire GECOM machinery, remains a befuddling mystery of gigantic proportion. That all of these allegedly fraudulent votes were only in favour of the PPP and that they totalled the same number of votes that the PPP received over and above APNU/AFC, adds greater bewilderment to this hair-raising saga.
Were one to follow the plot line of this cryptic tale, it means that after voting for himself, each impersonator would then have voted multiple times (perhaps hundreds), as the case may be. Every voter knows his name will be identified on the list of electors at the Polling Station by a Poll Clerk. The voter produces an acceptable form of ID or swears an oath of identification. This is checked against a folio containing the personal information of the voter, including a photograph. This folio is in possession of all the staff in that Polling Station. When the elector’s identity is confirmed, his name is then ticked off on the list of electors in possession of each staff in that Station. After voting, his index finger is then stained with an indelible ink – all of this taking place within the full view of a Presiding Officer, an Assistant Presiding Officer, a Poll Clerk and multiple Polling Agents representing the political parties. It is APNU/AFC’s contention that this person then returned, possibly dozens, hundreds or thousands of times during the course of that very day and voted multiple times for other persons without detection! Just imagine this occurring 15,000 times in a 12-hour period across the country in broad daylight! This is the level of asininity to which the APNU/AFC have descended.
In conclusion, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that the presence of dead people on the list results in voter impersonation or fraudulent voting. There are sufficient checks and balances in place which are going to be furthered strengthened by amendments already tabled in the National Assembly, along with the creation of a series of offences carrying penalties as high as 10 years’ imprisonment, to prevent voter impersonation.
Yours faithfully,
Mohabir Anil Nandlall, SC MP
Attorney General and Minister of
Legal Affairs
