House-to-house registration to end on August 31

Last Updated on Thursday, 23 January 2020, 17:11 by Writer

The Chairperson of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Retired Justice Claudette Singh has ordered that the now more-than-one-month-old house-to-house registration will come to an end on Saturday, August 31 and the data would be merged.

“Cognizant of all that has transpired over the past months, GECOM has an obligation to produce a credible Official List of Electors (OLE) in the first instance and ultimately credible elections within the shortest possible time,” Justice Singh stated.

After considerable deliberations, the Commission on the way forward regarding the conduct of General and Regional Elections, Justice Singh, at the Statutory Meeting of the Commission held on Tuesday, August 27 instructed the following:

1. House to House Registration must be brought to an end. As such, Order 25 of 2019 published in the Official Gazette should be amended for the exercise to conclude on 31st August, 2019 instead of 20th October, 2019.
2. Based on the ruling of the Chief Justice on 14th August, 2019 that House to House Registration is not unlawful and is constitutional, the data garnered from that registration exercise must be merged with the existing National Register of Registrants Database (NRRDB).
3. In this regard, the Commission will move to an extensive Claims and Objections Exercise (C&O) before extracting the Preliminary List of Electors (PLE).

The Commission will continue to further deliberate on other matters of importance for the holding of General and Regional Elections within the shortest possible time and the Secretariat will continue to implement a number of operations activities, in particular training of polling day staff and procurement of non-sensitive materials.

Bibi Shadick, one of the three opposition-backed GECOM commissioners said no other decision has been taken on when there would be claims and objections.

Shadick, along with her other two PPP nominated GECOM colleagues are opposed to the merger of the data.