Leaders of the Alliance for Change (AFC) on Friday called for the scrapping of the existing National Registrar of Registrants (NRR) used by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), a course of action that directly contravenes the 2019 ruling by Chief Justice Roxanne George which established that names cannot be removed from the NRR.
During their weekly press conference on Friday, AFC Chairman David Patterson asserted that the current NRR should be replaced with a fresh database created through the return of house-to-house registration process.
Scrapping of the existing NRR would essentially remove everyone from the NRR and house to house registration would only return the names of those persons found at a residence when visited by GECOM personnel. Hence creating a new NRR would inevitably lead to the removal of individuals not captured during the registration exercise. Nonetheless Patterson maintained that scrapping the existing NRR would not remove names.
“A new house to house process could give you a new NRR. We’re not taking anybody off the list, you’re creating a new list,” Patterson stated.
“There is nothing precluding us from doing house to house. We are not removing anybody; we are starting a register at the base of all eligible persons that should be on it and then it is populated like it is done all the time. Same claim and objections, continuous registration etc.”
Also present at the press conference, AFC Leader, Nigel Hughes, also an attorney, brushed aside the legal ramifications of scrapping the existing NRR and maintained that the party’s stance remains consistent with Patterson’s statements.
However, the situation described by Patterson is the exact situation that the Chief Justice (ag) Roxane George ruled on in 2019, where she categorically established that it is unconstitutional for qualified persons to be removed from the list. She noted that since residency is no longer a qualification for registration and that names cannot be removed from the NRR solely based on a failure to verify residency during a house-to-house registration. Her ruling came in response to concerns raised by attorney and chartered accountant Christopher Ram, who argued that such a process would disenfranchise many registered voters.
In her decision, Chief Justice George clarified that while a house-to-house registration exercise itself is not unconstitutional, it cannot be used as a means to remove names from the NRR. Only deceased individuals or those disqualified under specific constitutional provisions may be removed. She emphasized the sacrosanct nature of the right to vote, stating, “residence requirements from citizens is no longer a qualification for registration.”
The AFC’s push for a new NRR raises significant legal and ethical questions about the voting rights of Guyanese citizens, especially those who may be away from their registered addresses during the proposed registration exercise.
Chairperson of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Retired Justice Claudette Singh has also previous established that constitutional reform would be needed in order for the Commission to be empowered to clean the present voters’ list and introduce biometrics into the voting process.
