The effort to gaslight the people of Guyana about the integrity of the March 2nd elections is palpable. Frederick Kissoon claimed the PPP did not storm the Ashmin Building during the Region 4 count. A PSC official claimed it is impossible for the dead or absent to vote. They are all contending that the overwhelming evidence of fraud and corruption by the PPP is of no importance.
In the months proceeding the elections, the APNU-AFC sounded the alarm about PPP conspiracy to engage in fraudulent activities, including fraudulent voting. The APNU-AFC argued that if the bloated list was not cleaned the PPP corrupt activities could significant impact the outcome of the elections. GECOM heeded these concerns and commissioned H2H registration, but the PPP fought tooth and nail. The PPP, the supposed champion of free, fair and transparent elections, fought against cleaning the list. They even fought against unaccounted for names being flagged on the list, so election day staff and party agents could employ appropriate scrutiny when someone presents themselves to vote under a flagged name. The PPP was brazen and bareface as it campaigned to prevent GECOM from dismantling its fraudulent voting machinery.
The PPP scheme was aided by many in the “so called” civil society and the compromised Private Sector Commission, who argued that a bloated list is not a problem. This scheme would have worked well if there was no recount of all the votes casted at the March 2nd elections. If there was no recount, these charlatans would have pounded their chests and declare a victory for democracy. However, the recount exposed them.
As of May 22nd, the recount revealed 86,347 votes are compromised because of missing poll books, missing OLEs and ticks on OLEs being at variance with other documents in the ballot boxes. The recount also revealed that votes were cast for 37 dead persons and 1048 persons who were out of the jurisdiction. This is a big deal.
When the APNU-AFC sounded the alarm about the bloated list many charlatans claimed it was no big deal; fraudulent voting was not possible. Now with evidence to the contrary, no doubt they will argue that 37 votes cast for dead people is not statistically significant. They will dismiss 1048 votes cast for people out of the jurisdiction as insignificant. They will be doing this not because this is what they believe, but rather, because they are part of a conspiracy to deny the will of the people.
Those who rush to ask how 37 and 1048 votes cast for dead and missing persons respectively could deny the will of the people are missing the point. These numbers are not absolute. They are evidence, and tip of the iceberg, of a large and sophisticated fraudulent voting campaign.
The list used for the elections was bloated by over 200,000 or 33%. The international standard for discrepancy with a list is 5%. Above 5% discrepancy brings the credibility of the elections into question. Having 33% discrepancy, with evidence of a campaign of fraudulent voting, renderss the election not credible.
For instance, there were 2,333 ballot boxes used for the last elections. If the fraudulent campaign resulted in 2 fraudulent votes per hour in 1500 of the 2333 ballot boxes, that would be a total of 36,000 fraudulent votes. The previous two elections were decided by 5,000.
The situation is compounded by the PPP utterances of threats against those who provide evidence to substantiate fraudulent voting. Their declaration that accessing these documents to substantiate fraudulent voting is illegal. Their demands that GECOM Chairman, Justice Claudette Singh should not review the evidence of electoral fraud by the PPP. It is just brazen and bare face. It is like a fowl thief demanding the right to be allowed to eat the stolen fowl while the matter moves though the courts.
It is brazen and bareface, because before the recount it was the PPP who was claiming it needed a free, fair and transparent process. The OAS, EU, and ABC observer missions all echoed the PPP call for a free, fair and transparent process. Well, we are having a free, fair and transparent recount, it is exposing PPP fraud, and decimated all their claims of having won the elections.
The situation that confronts us should not be rocket science for these observer missions. The OAS observer mission declared the reelection of Evo Morales fraudulent because of, “drastic and hard-to-explain change in the trend of the preliminary results.” The evidence unearthed by the recount is far more damming that the OAS’s “hard to explain trend” in Bolivia.
In the United States, the 2018 Elections in the 9th Congressional District was nullified after evidence of fraud surfaced. McRae Dowless, a Republican operative, was accused of tampering with absentee ballots. He paid persons to go door to door in rural areas to collect incomplete absentee ballots, which he then completed himself. He submitted thousands of fraudulent absentee ballots for an election that his candidate won by just 905 votes. It was a victory for democracy when the election results were nullified and McRae Dowless indicted.
The fraud perpetuated by the PPP was rampant and systemic. It was not only fraudulent voting, it included illegally disenfranchising voters by failing to stamp the ballots they were issued. Severally thousand ballots were so affected. The scores of missing poll books is also evidence of an effort to cover up illegal activities.
The PPP and its surrogates are now contending that the fraud could only be addressed though an election petition. They are suggesting using obviously compromised numbers to overturn the legal declarations. This fraud could significantly reduce APNU-AFC majority and deny the will of the people
GECOM must make the recount data available to all political parties so that an election petition could be swift and decisive. In the meanwhile, GECOM must use the existing regional declarations to make a formal declaration and swear in President Granger for a second term.