The voter turnout for the Disciplined Services vote last Friday was 83%, according to the Guyana Elections Commission. Just over 10,000 members of the Guyana Police Force, Guyana Defence Force and the Prison Service were listed to vote last Friday, ahead of the rest of the country.
At a press conference this afternoon, Chief Election Officer, Vishnu Persaud told reporters that the Disciplined Services voting was conducted well, minor a few early morning glitches in the system that were addressed.
However, he explained that at the sorting of the ballots from the Disciplined Services vote, it was found that there were two extra ballots in the set of ballots for District 4, one missing for District 5 and another one missing for District 10.
The ballots of Disciplined Services members are usually sorted and sent to the various districts of those who cast their ballots for intermixing with the rest of ballots on election day when the rest of the country votes.
“Our interrogation of this matter has led us to a point where we have zoned in on what could have caused this problem. At this stage, a memo has been prepared to be submitted to the Commission along with recommendations along with a methodology to be used to fix this problem”, he stated.
The Chief Election Officer said he would not disclose the contents of the memo at this time, but noted that it will be submitted to the Commission before the end of today, ahead of the Commission’s Tuesday meeting. It is expected that the matter will be examined and addressed by the seven-member Elections Commission.
“It is only at that point that we will be able to give you further on this one”, he said.
On the issue of reports of marked ballots being photographed and shared on social media last Friday during the Disciplined Services vote, the Chief Election Officer confirmed that the matter was brought to the attention of the Commission and based on the photographs, the authenticity of the ballots was confirmed. He said the Election Secretariat intends to seek guidance from the Commission on that matter, and a Police report has not yet been made on the issue.
Last week, ahead of the Disciplined Services vote, the Guyana Elections Commission announced the prohibition of cameras and cellphones in the polling stations, to ensure the secrecy of the vote.
Under GECOM’s rules, persons should place their phones on a table next to the voting compartment, which would be visible to the GECOM staff and party agents. On Friday, the positioning of some of those compartments was raised as an issue since it did not allow the agents and staffers to see the area clearly.
GECOM intends to address that ahead of the elections on Monday.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login