DISCIPLINED SERVICES VOTER TURNOUT AT 83%, GECOM PROBES BALLOT DISCREPANCY
By Travis Chase | HGP Nightly News.
The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has reported an 83% voter turnout among members of the Disciplined Services, who cast their ballots last Friday ahead of the September 1, 2025, general and regional elections.
However, the election body faced hiccups during the sorting of ballots. At a press briefing on Monday afternoon, Chief Elections Officer Vishnu Persaud explained that discrepancies were discovered during the process.
“We ran into a situation where we have two extra ballots in the set for District Four, one short for District Five, and one short for District Ten,” Persaud stated.
Ballots cast by members of the Guyana Police Force, Guyana Defence Force, and Prison Service are first sorted before being intermixed with general votes in their respective districts on election day.
Persaud said GECOM has begun reviewing the matter and is preparing a formal memo with recommendations.
“Our interrogation of this matter has led us to a point where we have zoned in on what could have caused this problem. A memo has been prepared to be submitted to the Commission along with recommendations and a methodology to fix this problem. The contents of that memo will only be discussed at the level of GECOM,” Persaud explained.
According to GECOM, just over 10,000 disciplined service members were eligible to vote in Friday’s early balloting.
