Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall believes the calls for electronic voting are aimed at causing “mishaps” on the Elections Day.
Speaking during his weekly programme ‘Issues in the News’ on Tuesday, he noted that an electronic voting mechanism is not suitable for Guyana at this point in its history.
“I am not opposed to any form of technology but the manual system is working. Why you want to resort to technology where things can go wrong in a country like Guyana, where we can have a blackout (power outage) on elections day and it damages some programme that causes the finger printing machine to malfunction,” Nandlall reasoned.
“Why you want to expose us and our electoral practice to such mishaps,” he further questioned.
The Opposition political parties have repeatedly called for electronic voting for the upcoming 2025 General and Regional Elections.
Nandlall said the parties are guaranteed to lose at the upcoming polls and therein lies their reasons for making certain demands.
“They will lose the next elections so they have already begun to find excuses and reasons why they will lose…” he posited.
GECOM in a statement in August 2024, noted that the body is guided by laws and the introduction of biometrics requires legislative changes. “Until such is enabled, GECOM cannot proceed with implementing such a feature,” GECOM said.
Further, it noted that the voters list is sanitised through the Claims and Objections Exercises and reports from health authorities and the Commissioner of Police relating to deceased persons.
“Insofar as the integrity of the electoral process is concerned, there are in existence multiple safeguards aimed at preventing multiple voting and other form of skullduggery on Election Day,” GECOM said.
