PPP claims “tampering” of NRR at GECOM

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The Peoples Progressive Party is claiming that there is tampering of the National Register of Registrants at the Guyana Elections Commission.

GECOM’s Public Relations Officer Yolanda Warde says a response to the claims will be provided later in the day.

See below statement from the PPP.

The PPP has just received reliable information that there is currently ongoing at GECOM’s Secretariat, an exercise whereby “adjustments” are being made to data on the National Register of Registrants (NRR) using unverified information generated from the truncated house to house registration exercise. This information is not only replete with errors, but was never subjected to the legal requirement of a Claims and Objections Process. The PPP, by way of a compromise, only agreed to add new verified registrants to the Revised List of Electors.

This exercise is being conducted by Melanie Marshall, the controversial Returning Officer of Region Four, who deliberately made herself unavailable to receive the PPP’s request for a recount of votes in Region Four at the 2015 National and Regional Elections.

This tampering with the NRR by GECOM’s staff is not only unlawful, but it is clearly intended to cause chaos and confusion on elections day by facilitating duplicate voting, permitting unqualified persons to vote and preventing qualified persons from voting. So for example, if a person’s name or address is changed on the NRR, it is that change that will appear in the Official List of Electors (OLE), which in turn will require the voter to vote at a different location from where he/she is residing , or being prevented from voting altogether. This may result in violence, mayhem and public disorder on elections day.

Certainly, this illicit design is intended to compromise the integrity of the electoral process and is another brazen attempt at perpetrating fraud at the upcoming National and Regional elections.

We call upon Justice Retired Claudette Singh to put an immediate end to this illegal course of action.

We call upon the International Community to pay keen attention to this unfortunate occurrence.

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