Under the Order, GECOM is specifically mandated to deliberate over the CEO’s report and according to Granger, over the CARICOM report as well.
Part of the deliberation is the determination by the Commission whether to request the CEO to use the data submitted by him as the basis for a report to ascertain and declare the results of the elections.
While that is unlikely to stall the process, the statement by the Coalition after GECOM had decided to tabulate the East Coast ballots is more serious.
Declaring that GECOM must give the rationale for what APNU+AFC referred to as an inexplicable decision, the Coalition made clear its non-acceptance of the tabulated vote which it claimed contained “several votes which are fraudulent”.
While the term “fraudulent” is of wide import, it is used only three times in the Representation of the People Act and unless the APNU+AFC is somehow accusing GECOM officials of fraud, the use of the term is unfortunate, misleading and incorrect.
