GECOM commissioners differ on whether prisoners can vote

Last Updated on Saturday, 7 June 2025, 13:43 by Writer

Two opposing members of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) gave different accounts of Thursday’s decision by the seven-member body on whether prisoners would be allowed to vote in the September 1, 2025 general and regional elections.

A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC)-nominated commissioner Vincent Alexander said GECOM Chairman Retired Justice Claudette Singh would research the issue and provide a response next Tuesday.

Mr. Alexander reported that the Chairman “sought to suggest that there is some law that forbids the public or anyone from speaking with prisoners and, therefore, we don’t have the facilitation to allow them to vote.”

He said he and his two colleague opposition-nominated commissioners argued that there was no need to speak with prisoners, but the voters’ list for them could be compiled in the same way it is done for members of the Disciplined Services.

The GECOM Chairman or the secretariat did not issue a statement about the decisions or deliberations from Thursday’s meeting.

However, People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC)-nominated commissioner Attorney-at-Law Sase Gunraj said the commission decided on Thursday that they could not vote because there is no supporting legislation. He said prisoners are governed by specific legislation in the same way a special law has been enacted for voting on days other than election day for the wider public. “There is no such facility that is in place in the law to allow voting by prisoners and, as a consequence, that was the conclusion on that,” he said.

In contrast to Mr Alexander’s account, Mr Gunraj said he did not recall the GECOM Chairman saying she would discuss the matter again on Tuesday. “I believe that this is a concluded matter” because there is no law that allows inmates to vote.

Asked whether GECOM was not empowered to resolve difficulties, as it had done by crafting Order 60 to facilitate the 2020 national vote recount, he said that was not applicable in this instance.

Mr Alexander also dismissed a question on whether his desire for prisoners to vote was as a result of a call by the Bartica United Youth Development Group (BUYDG) in September 2024 for prisoners to vote. “I don’t know about that. I independently brought this to the fore,” he said.

“One becomes more conscious along the way. You don’t necessarily know everything all the time but as it becomes known to you, then you confront it,” he said. He reasoned that they should vote because Guyana’s Constitution states that all Guyanese 18 years and older should be allowed to vote. He noted that only insane persons and others convicted for election offences must not be allowed to vote. The inmates in United Kingdom and Belize are allowed to vote.

BUYDG’s acting President, Kellion Leps had said in the letter that “All qualified persons, whether held under the presumption of innocence or after being convicted, pleaded guilty, sentenced to prison, held in any State custodians etc. are given the right to exercise their franchise at all lawful and constitutional elections and referendums held in Guyana.”

That organisation had also said all individuals who are arrested, apprehended, detained, or held in any State custody during elections must “be given the full opportunity to exercise their right to vote.”

The correspondence was dispatched to President Irfaan Ali, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, Attorney General Anil Nandlall, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Gail Teixeira, Prime Minister Mark Phillips, Home Affairs Minister Robeson Benn, Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission Retired Justice Claudette Singh, Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton and Leader of the Alliance For Change Nigel Hughes.

But Mr Alexander, who is the longest-serving election commissioner, claimed ownership of the idea that prison inmates across Guyana should be allowed to exercise their franchise. He said his years of service as a commissioner had nothing to do with his call for those incarcerated on polling day to cast ballots.