On 13 June, the Chief Election Officer presented his report to the Elections Commission on the recount of the votes cast in the 2020 elections, as required by paragraph 12 of the gazetted Order of 4 May.

That paragraph states that ‘[t]he matrices for the recount of the ten (10) Electoral Districts shall then be tabulated by the Chief Election Officer (CEO) and shall be submitted in a report, together with a summary of the observation reports for each District, to the Commission’.

During the recount, GECOM staff recorded in the observation report for each region several allegations made by the APNU+AFC of irregularities, including voting by persons who have migrated and were not present in the country on polling day, or who have died prior to the date of the elections.

The following are some of the specific findings contained in the report:

The Team did not witness anything which would render the recount, and by extension, the casting of the ballot on 2 March, so grievously deficient procedurally or technically, (despite some irregularities), or sufficiently deficient to have thwarted the will of the people and consequently preventing the election results and its declaration by GECOM from reflecting the will of the voters;

The public utterances of some GECOM Commissioners, political pundits and politicians may have sounded an ominous tone, with the partisan driven and distorted narrative on migrant and “phantom voting”, and implied voter impersonation;

The gazetted Order for the recount established in part a convoluted process for the final declarations of the results of the election which required submissions of reports and resubmission of reports as well as deliberations of the Commission before a final declaration could be made.

The Commission’s ruling on the CEO’s report

Last Tuesday, the GECOM Chair wrote to the CEO requesting him to submit a report using the results of the recount by Thursday.