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In an open letter dated October 28, 2024, GECOM Commissioner Vincent Alexander issued a pointed rebuttal to fellow Commissioner Clement Rohee, disputing his claims on the reliability of Guyana’s voter list and the effectiveness of existing election safeguards. Alexander argued that Guyana’s election integrity would benefit from biometric technology, specifically digital fingerprint identification at polling stations, to prevent impersonation—a problem that he claims was evident in the 2020 general and regional elections.
Rohee had previously asserted that comparing current voter registration figures with data from the 2012 census was misleading, suggesting that Guyana’s population has naturally increased due to re-migration and other factors. Alexander, however, countered that Rohee’s numbers lacked substantiation, pointing out that the estimated voter population of 728,556 in 2024 is close to the 2012 total population figure of 750,000. He further cited recent statements from former President Bharrat Jagdeo, estimating the country’s population at around 900,000, as an indication that overall growth has been more limited than Rohee suggests. “Rohee seems to be speculative,” Alexander wrote, arguing that using the most recent official census data is a reasonable approach in analyzing voter list growth.
The need for fingerprint technology at polling stations was a focal point in Alexander’s letter. He explained that digital fingerprinting, as opposed to the manually captured fingerprints currently used, would provide a higher standard of verification, eliminating the low-quality images that have proven problematic in cross-matching processes. According to Alexander, GECOM and its Cross-Matching Provider discovered this issue in 2019, following the aborted house-to-house registration, when duplicate registrations were detected despite prior cross-matching efforts. The problem, he noted, was attributed to substandard manually captured prints, which failed to detect duplicates.
Rohee’s suggestion to digitize existing manual fingerprints misses the point, Alexander argued, as digitizing poor-quality prints does not improve their utility for accurate cross-matching. “In any electronic system, it’s ‘garbage in, garbage out,’” Alexander stated, emphasizing that flawed data entry yields unreliable results. Digital fingerprint verification, by contrast, would capture high-quality images, reducing the potential for duplicates and enabling more reliable voter authentication on election day.
Beyond impersonation concerns, Alexander’s letter also addressed the issue of deceased overseas residents still listed as eligible voters. He argued that without a mechanism to remove these names, the voter list remains “bloated” and vulnerable to manipulation. “It is those same names of overseas persons which were verified as having been used for voter impersonation,” Alexander noted, asserting that current measures are insufficient to protect against fraudulent voting practices.
Alexander is calling for the adoption of biometric technology, which he described as a “universally accepted and used mechanism” for preventing impersonation. He argued that digitally captured prints provide a verifiable standard that would strengthen voter authentication and reduce fraud. As the debate over election security continues within GECOM, Alexander’s push for biometrics places pressure on the commission to evaluate new technology as a means to restore public confidence and ensure the integrity of future elections.
