Voter suppression
On October 29, nearly a week ago, it was reported to the media by several commissioners of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) following their weekly meeting that a decision had been taken by the Chair, Justice (Rtd) Claudette Singh that the names of over 25,000 could be excluded from the Official List of Electors (OLE) for the March 2020 General and Regional Elections if those persons made no effort to uplift National Identification Cards which have not been collected going all the way back to 2008.
It was further reported by the commissioners that the Chair had arrived at this position after reviewing two proposals which had been put forward by the government-appointed commissioners. The GECOM Chair has unfortunately not made herself available to the media to answer questions or provide clarifications but there has been no attempt by the Commission thus far to refute what has widely been reported in the media as it relates to these 25,000 names.
So while there has been no official word from GECOM of this intention, it must be stated from the outset that the removal of names of persons from the voters list on the grounds that they had not uplifted ID cards would be illegal and unconstitutional. It would also make a mockery of Justice Singh’s own decision in the Esther Perreira elections petition case where she ruled that the requirement for a special voter ID card was an attachment on the constitutional right to vote.
Justice Singh apparently read a ‘ruling’ to the commissioners to support her decision for the removal of the names if within 21 days of the publication of the list of the names the persons in question do not turn up to collect them. While publishing the names of the persons could be considered a reasonable approach, the only acceptable course of action if the cards were not collected would be for GECOM to agree that they be destroyed so as not to be employed for any nefarious purposes. That’s it. Under no circumstances can the names be struck from the list as that would be patently illegal and would open up GECOM and Justice Singh to legal action.
By suggesting that these uncollected cards connote some type of mischief, the proponents of the deletion of the names are themselves undermining trust and confidence in the ID generation process and its interface with the registration system. Is it conceivable that over 25,000 ID cards could have been generated in any other manner but via legitimate and well-scrutinised applications? How could the non-collection of these cards corrupt the electoral system when there are so many safeguards at the various levels including at the place of poll?
What will be evident here again - as in other instances - is a growing attempt at voter suppression in the main by the government-appointed commissioners of GECOM and, in this case, apparently chaperoned by the Chair. The real
intention of the misguided house-to-house registration exercise championed by the government, the government-appointed commissioners and the former Chairman of GECOM, Justice (Rtd) Patterson was to exclude the names from the list of electors of those who were not present at their residences at the point of registration. This move was derailed by the recent ruling of Chief Justice George that residency was not a requirement for the exercising of franchise.
This ruling, however, did not prevent a yet unexplained press release from GECOM advising that following the publication of the Preliminary Voters List that persons listed had to appear in person at some registration office to confirm their identity otherwise their names would not appear on the OLE. This advice was later withdrawn but its mastermind and motivations have still not been made known to the public.
All of these missteps and attempts to contravene the constitutional right to vote will raise serious questions about whether GECOM is not engaged in voter suppression. Whereas it is arguably GECOM’s role to try to convince as many persons as possible to register and to cast their ballots on polling day, this latest folly in the name of Justice Singh seeks to strike off from the final voters list the names of persons who most likely remain eminently eligible to cast their ballots on March 2, 2020.
At tomorrow’s meeting of GECOM, Justice Singh must take steps to end this infringement on the rights of those voters – in the list of over 25,000 - who are eligible to exercise their franchise on polling day.