Controversy erupts over spreadsheet at GECOM’s Region Four office
-verification delayed amid various problems
Verification of Statements of Poll (SoPs) for Region Four was on hold last night after some staff said they were exhausted, compounding hours of delay earlier in the day when a questionable spreadsheet of results triggered a major controversy and an emergency GECOM meeting.
After that controversy was resolved, a staffing issue arose last night which suspended the verification of SoPs vital to the final declaration of results in Monday’s general and regional elections. The suspension at around 9 pm came despite pleas from the PPP for the process to continue through the night.
The verification of SoPs from polling stations across Region Four was delayed earlier yesterday after a controversy erupted over the utilisation of a spreadsheet with numbers which did not correspond with the numbers on copies of SoPs of observers and agents of political parties. The appearance of the spreadsheet sounded alarm bells that mischief might be afoot.
This situation occurred at the office of the Returning Officer for Region Four at High and Hadfield streets, Georgetown.
Stabroek News understands that a staff member, who was filling in for the Returning Officer of Region Four, Clairmont Mingo - who had earlier in the day fallen sick and was rushed to the hospital - was using a spreadsheet which had the tally of all the votes from the polling stations, instead of SoPs to verify the counted votes. However, the numbers differed from what the agents and observers had and this led to concerns being raised.
Observers and party agents monitoring the verification process engaged Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield and expressed their concern and after he made checks, he said he found “errors.”
This resulted in the verification process being delayed for over four hours and representatives of the political parties including the People’s Progressive Party and members of the diplomatic community showed up to assess the situation. An emergency meeting with GECOM Chair, retired Justice Claudette Singh, and commissioners was convened in an attempt to find a
solution to the controversy.
Explaining the situation, Lowenfield yesterday told reporters that after a replacement was found for Mingo, the verification process was restarted. It was later stopped when some workers complained of being exhausted and Lowenfield ordered a suspension.
Speaking about what had happened earlier in the day, Lowenfield said: “The process commenced at probably 2pm, and during the process some errors were discerned. [By that time] we would have completed some eight statements and the errors were contained in six of the eight statements,” the CEO said. “The representatives of the party along with the observers spoke with me. I enquired what is it, I was advised and I advised my staff and the agents and the observers that I will engage the commission, Madame Chair and the commissioners [and] that was done”.
While he did not acknowledge what was the issue and made no mention of the controversial spreadsheet, Lowenfield said that they found errors. “The SoPs contained votes [for] a party…it can’t be spelling errors… We agreed at the end of the evening we will do the verification by statements to statements, so I take out my statements, you go through yours,” he said. Should they still find errors, Lowenfield said he will use his copies of SoPs to verify the count.
Over 362 SoPs from the East Coast and East Bank of Demerara were being verified and Lowenfield had said that they would be working all night to advance the process. That was before the later suspension. Statements from North and South Georgetown have already been verified.
The CEO had refrained from giving a commitment as to how long the process would take and said that they are hoping to finish in the soonest possible time and make a declaration.
Satisfied
Meantime, General Secretary of the PPP/C Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday told reporters that he was satisfied with the position GECOM arrived at to move forward over the spreadsheet. He said that he believes the verification of SoPs by SoPs was the best way to go to ensure that there are credible results. He pointed out that the law does not provide for spreadsheets to be used as a part of the verification.
It is still unclear from where the spreadsheet, which parties contesting the elections said contained bloated numbers of votes in favour of the coalition, emerged.
“They came with a spreadsheet and started to call out these boxes from the spreadsheet. They had APNU with at least a 100 votes more than that are on the Statement of Polls. So everyone objected, the observers and the political parties, then Mr Lowenfield came down himself and he did a random sample and he found that in each of these cases it had at least 100 votes more… that is on the SoPs… the observers they have copies, the parties have copies so we don’t know who generated this and that is the issue right now,” Jagdeo said, as he explained the issue to reporters.
He argued that other districts have declared their results using the SoPs but in Region Four there is a situation of wanting to verify the results by a “list generated by someone.”
Jagdeo added that while he is cognisant of the anxiety among the people, he would prefer to know that GECOM is taking its time to produce results that are accurate instead of results that are not credible.
“We have to have verified results. If it takes two days more for that it is fine with us and better than to announce unverified results,” he emphasised.
Meanwhile, Leader and Presidential Candidate of the Liberty and Justice Party, Lenox Shuman told reporters that his party, along with the other smaller parties, had also requested that the verification be done by SoPs.
“We cannot work from a spreadsheet so we want to get the SoPs so that we will get results that will be credible from Region Four… We know there was a spreadsheet that was produced and there are discrepancies with those numbers on it. There are numbers that were higher and lower in certain cases...” Shuman related.
He said that his party would prefer to wait rather than have GECOM rush to produce results that bears no integrity.
As the controversy was being sorted out, persons stood opposite the returning office and chanted in support of the coalition. They spent over two hours onsite, and police erected barricades to prevent them from making their way onto the road.
The verification process has been ongoing for two days now and it is unclear when GECOM will make an official proclamation of the results. So far, nine administrative regions have made their regional declarations. The PPP has secured wins in regions One, Two, Three, Five, Six and Nine while the APNU+AFC secured wins in regions Seven, Eight and Ten.
The PPP is in the lead by just over 51,000 votes in the regional component of the general and regional elections.
The regions declare results on the regional section of the ballot and these mostly mirror the results of the general election, which will be declared by Lowenfield.