Chairperson of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Justice Claudette Singh, has decided that the thousands of persons who did not uplift their identification cards from 2008, will be given 21 days to do so.
Failure to uplift them will result in these persons not being included on the Official List of Electors, according to GECOM Commissioners following today’s statutory meeting.
However, they will remain on the National Register of Registrants (NRR).
Back in August, Chief Justice Roxane George ruled that persons cannot be removed from the voters’ list unless they are dead or otherwise disqualified to vote under Article 159 (2) (3) or (4).
In 2015, with over 35,000 identification cards still sitting at GECOM that belong to persons registered since 2008, the then GECOM Chairman, Dr Steve Surujbally, had said that persons do not need ID cards to vote at the May 11, 2015 elections.
As a matter of fact, it is the current GECOM Chair, Justice Claudette Singh, who in 1998 in the High Court case ruled that the requirement for voters to have a voter ID card in 1997 was ultra vires Articles 59 and 159 of the Constitution (despite a parliamentary agreement to use the cards) when Esther Pereira, a PNC supporter, petitioned the High Court to set aside the results of the 1997 elections.
