House-to-house registration data to be displayed for public scrutiny
Following another meeting of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), it has been decided that the data gathered during the recent house-to-house registration process will be displayed for public examination.
“There was a decision of [GECOM Chairperson Claudette Singh] that data from house-to-house, after encoding, will be put up for public scrutiny,” opposition-nominated Commissioner Bibi Shadick told reporters outside GECOM’s Kingston headquarters yesterday.
She later explained to Stabroek News that commissioners have still not received an update with regards to how far along the encoding process is, but they have been promised a comprehensive report once it is completed.
This report will also indicate whether all of the more than 370,000 entries will be put up for public scrutiny or whether only the data of the new registrants will be displayed. Government-nominated Commissioner Charles Corbin said that data point comparisons between the National Register of Registrants (NRR) and the house-to-house data will mean that only the most recent information for each person will make it onto the List of Electors.
“The most recent data, that one is the data that will be in force,” Corbin said, while explaining that the results of the first batch of 170,000 cross-matched fingerprints are expected back in Guyana within two weeks.
Once received, that information will be displayed for 21 of the 42 days assigned for Claims and Objections.
“It will be for 21 days. We are sure that all of the data will be available 21 days before the end of the processing period. It will be the house-to-house data that will be displayed for public review,” he said.
The merging of the house-to-house data with the NRR has been a sore point for the commission. While the government-nominated members have maintained that the information must be used, the opposition-nominated members have argued that it is “unverified data which must not be allowed to contaminate the NRR.”
Leader of the Opposition Bharrat Jagdeo told a press conference on Thursday that the merger “is a big fight.
“We will never allow unverified data to go into the NRR. The house-to-house [registration exercise] was not supervised,” he argued.
His party, the PPP, boycotted the house-to-house registrations process and did not provide scrutineers and has since argued, among other things, that their absence from the process makes it illegal.
General elections will be held on March 2nd, 2020.