Auditor details vote discrepancies in Guyana’s 2020 election fraud trial
Chartered Accountant and highly regarded forensic audit consultant attached to the Guyana Police Force’s CID, Terrence Jaskaran
Key Points(5)
- A forensic auditor has testified that declarations made for Guyana’s largest electoral district during the disputed 2020 general election recorded about 20,000 more votes for the then-ruling APNU+AFC coalition than were reflected in certified Statements of Poll he examined.
- Terrence Jaskaran continued his testimony Monday before Principal Magistrate Faith McGusty in the ongoing trial stemming from allegations of fraud surrounding the March 2, 2020 election.
- Jaskaran was retained by Guyana’s Ministry of Home Affairs as a forensic audit consultant and was later asked by police to tabulate certified Statements of Poll, or SoPs, and compare the figures with official declarations for the country’s electoral regions.
- His analysis found significant discrepancies in Region Four, the country’s largest voting district.
- Jaskaran testified that the certified Region Four SoPs he examined showed 116,215 votes for APNU+AFC.
A forensic auditor has testified that disputed declarations from Guyana’s largest electoral district recorded about 20,000 more votes for the then-ruling APNU+AFC coalition than were reflected in certified Statements of Poll he examined from the country’s controversial 2020 general election.
Terrence Jaskaran presented the findings as part of the ongoing trial of nine former and current Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) officials accused of fraud in connection with the March 2, 2020 election.
Jaskaran, a chartered accountant and forensic audit consultant, was tasked with comparing certified Statements of Poll, or SoPs, from Region Four with Form 24 declarations issued following the election.
His analysis found that the certified SoPs he examined recorded 116,215 votes for APNU+AFC in Region Four.
That figure was 20,243 votes lower than the 136,458 votes recorded for the coalition in a March 5 declaration. A second declaration issued on March 13 recorded 136,057 votes for APNU+AFC, a difference of 19,842 votes from Jaskaran’s tally.
The analysis also found that the certified SoPs recorded 80,288 votes for the PPP/C, compared with 77,329 votes in the March 5 declaration and 77,231 in the March 13 declaration. Those represented differences of 2,959 and 3,057 votes, respectively.
Jaskaran continued his testimony Monday before Principal Magistrate Faith McGusty, with prosecutors arguing that the discrepancies were significant enough to change the apparent outcome of the election.
Prosecutor Latchmie Rahamat said Jaskaran’s tabulation of the certified SoPs showed the PPP/C leading the other parties nationally by more than 15,000 votes.
The prosecution contends that the disputed Region Four declarations erased that advantage and instead placed APNU+AFC ahead.
“The declarations of the 5th of March 2020 changed the results of the 2nd of March election, giving the APNU+AFC the victory,” Rahamat told the court.
Senior Prosecutor Darshan Ramdhani previously said that if the disputed declarations had stood, APNU+AFC would have received approximately three additional parliamentary seats, while the PPP/C would have been denied more than four seats.
Jaskaran told the court that the certified SoPs used in his analysis were obtained from the office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court. He entered the figures into spreadsheets, calculated the totals for each political party and compared them with the Form 24 declarations.
His analysis also identified smaller discrepancies involving several other parties.
However, some certified SoPs were blank or were not presented and were therefore excluded from his calculations.
The prosecution has argued that Jaskaran’s findings should be considered alongside testimony from people who were present during the controversial Region Four tabulation at the Ashmin’s Building in Georgetown.
According to Rahamat, earlier witnesses testified that figures were called from a spreadsheet rather than directly from Statements of Poll and that some did not correspond with copies of the SoPs held by political parties.
Jaskaran was accepted by the court as an expert in forensic auditing despite objections from defense attorneys representing the accused.
He is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and a Forensic Certified Public Accountant and has worked in audit and assurance since 2011.
The controversy over the Region Four count triggered a prolonged dispute over the results of Guyana’s 2020 election. A national recount was subsequently conducted, after which the PPP/C was declared the winner and Irfaan Ali was sworn in as president on August 2, 2020.
The nine defendants in the current case have pleaded not guilty. The court has not made any findings that the accused committed fraud, and the trial remains ongoing.
