Georgetown: Guyanese can expect more timely and improved election results as soon as these become available from the various polling stations and districts. This was promised by Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) officials, when they launched the Commission Elections Media Centre Saturday at High Street Kingston.
The centre for which the commission has received support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is to counter the “great embarrassment” of the last elections, when having no results to announce created many problems and led to false ideas regarding the authenticity of the polls. This time however results will be posted to the nation in a timely and smoother manner, GECOM Chairman, Dr. Steve Surujbally said.
UNDP Resident Representative Khadija Musa explained that the UNDP is supplying the equipment and technical support for the functioning of the media centre. The organisation’s role in support of the centre is primarily for the display of electronic information approved by the commission. Musa explained that the organisation has two persons attached to GECOM; they will support the technical feed of information to the media and through the media to the general public.
According to Musa, the UNDP has huge experience in providing such electronic support across many countries around the world, and has delivered such support in environments with different levels of complexities. She reassured that UNDP will only be working in the capacity of posting the information, as “The UNDP is not involved in sorting the data that come or touching the SOPs (Statements of Polls) or any such things. It is just the commissioner and the chairman. Whatever they approve and want posted we will do so.”
Musa said that the UNDP was pleased to be a part of the process, noting that provision of such information is very crucial, and that “when there is a void in information, the public worries.”
Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield explained that prior to the declaration of the final results, it will be preliminary data, and as they come in from the different polling stations, and districts, they will be posted through the centre. This will keep the viewership informed as to what is happening in the ten districts across the spectrum, he said.
Lowenfield also explained that the data will first be preliminary, so as to cater for any request for recount or tabulation inaccuracies. “We will not be waiting for completion of a district before we go on to another, but it is going to be running information based on what we will be receiving throughout the evening, when the number of districts are provided for us and we will be doing a preliminary release, relative to the district,” he explained.
At the close of poll, Statements of Polls from every polling station will be posted outside the polling centre. Part of the responsibility of all presiding officers in each of the location will be to provide, as statutorily required, an envelope with their statements for the Chief Election Officer and another for the Returning Officer of the district.
Lowenfield explained that at all time, at the commission, a minimum of two elections officers will be there to sign off on every statement that comes in and is intended for the Chief Elections Officer; one commissioner will be from the governing side and one from the combined opposition, and they will affix their signatures to each of the statements coming in to the office of the Chief Election Officer.
The statement will then be scanned by the commission’s own IT staff, and once this is done, the hard copies with the signature, will be forwarded to the Chief Elections Officer. “At the office of the Chief Election Officer … I will go through the alteration in terms of logging those sheets and the results submitted on those statements, and once that is done, I would forward same to the team (media monitoring team). We will be doing so every two hours and so will be saying to the nation that these are the results as at (this time,)” he explained.
The returning officer, who will be receiving the statements in their respective districts, will at some point in time after the elections, seek to declare within their respective districts, their results. “So whilst we are doing the preliminary, and the returning officer in the district received their sum total, they will declare this in the respective districts,” Lowenfield explained.
At the end of the day, when all the returning officers have declared the results of the ten regions, these will be provided to the CEO and based on that sum total of the ten regions and the data provided, a general declaration will be made.
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