The Secretariat of the Guyana Elections Commission has fired back at the Commissioners who have lashed out at its 156-day proposal for a recount of all the votes.

In a statement, the GECOM Secretariat said while it understands that the proposed timeline for the activity may be quite lengthy, the secretariat had to consider matters of law in relation to the procedures to conduct a recount, approved decisions of the Commission and the current COVID-19 pandemic affecting the health situation of the population.

The Secretariat said it considered the request by the Commission for each ballot to be projected on a screen, for the examination of the contents of the ballot box which includes the ascertaining the number of electors on the list, the number of electors who voted, counting votes cast for both General and Regional Election and validation of spoilt, questioned
and rejected ballots.

The secretariat said it is against that backdrop, the estimated time for one ballot box to be counted was projected to be two hours; utilizing 3 workstations for 10 hours per day (9:00hrs -19:00hrs) at a central location to count 2339 boxes.

According to the GECOM Secretariat, it finds the comments by the Commissioners absurd, distasteful and unethical particularly since they
are aware that the proposal considered the decisions of the Commission and its content is still being discussed for finalization.

Two of the Commissioners who spoke with the media after today’s meeting made it clear that the document put forward by the Secretariat was just a proposal and both sides intend to put forward proposals of their own before a final document is completed.

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