One week after Carter Center recommended that the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) details the tabulation process from the closing of the poll to the declaration of the results, Chief Election Officer (CEO), Vishnu Persaud has detailed the process.

At a press conference earlier this week, Mr. Persaud explained that once the votes are counted at the polling stations following the close of poll, the Presiding Officers will then hand over the Statements of Poll (SOPs) to the Deputy Returning Officers (ROs) in the 10 Electoral Districts.

“The Presiding Officer is required by law to deliver his Statement of Poll to the Returning Officer. For this purpose, Deputy Returning Officers have been put in charge of clusters of polling stations [and] they will be receiving Statements of Poll for those polling stations within their cluster,” Persaud said.

Persaud said once the SOPs are delivered to the DROs, those Deputy Returning Officers will then hand over the SOPs to the Returning Officers, and in the case of Regions 3, 4, and 6, the Supernumerary Returning Officers for the various sub-districts will be receiving those SOPs.

He also pointed out that the SOPs would be transported in the presence of the Police and Polling agents of the various political parties.

“I have given this overview to establish the point that in no aspect or in no component of this move that there will be the absence of police or party agents, accompanying the Statements of Poll, all with a view to safeguarding the integrity of the Statements of Poll,” he said.

The next step involves the tabulation of the votes using the SOPs by either the ROs or Supernumerary Returning Officers. However, according to electoral laws, the ROs aided by other Election Officials would be required to scan and upload the SOPs to GECOM’s website for public viewing in the interest of transparency.

“It is only when that is completed that tabulation of the votes to determine the results for the districts or sub-districts will commence. The tabulation will be done in a most transparent manner, that is, every Statement of Poll will be placed on a desk, a camera will be placed over that Statement of Poll, and will throw the image on a screen, a 55 [inch TV]. The Statement of Poll will be there for all to see in a setting that assures that they are not too far away placed from the screens that they would not be able to see the numbers. While the Statement of Poll is on display, an authorized staff would be calling out the numbers, which numbers would be inputted onto on a spreadsheet that would be used on a side by side screen. That Statement of Poll would not be removed until the persons who are authorized to be in that room are satisfied with the accuracy of the information transferred,” the CEO explained.

Once the SOPs are all tabulated the ROs would then generate their reports and declare the results of the elections for the districts, in this case for Districts 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10, while in the case of Regions 3, 4, and 6, the Supernumerary Officers will submit their reports to the ROs for further tabulation before the reports are produced and declarations made.

He said once those declarations are made, they must be submitted to the CEO.

The Chief Election Officer then has a total of 12 hours upon receipt of the last declared returns to put together the results for the country, including the allocation of seats for the General Elections.

With all systems in place, Persaud said he foresees no hiccups in the process. 

The Carter Center in its pre-election report published on August 19, said the amendments to the Representation of the People Act has decentralized the tabulation process to the sub-district level in the three most populous regions.

GECOM had not published detailed tabulation procedures.

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