Executive Summary
Between the 2020 and 2025 General Elections, Guyana’s Official List of Electors (OLE) grew from about 661,000 to 757,690 — a 14.6% increase. This growth occurred without a national census since 2012 and with the government withholding 2022 census data, making it impossible to verify whether the register reflects reality. By 2025, registered voters accounted for over 90% of the estimated population — an unprecedented proportion in the Caribbean.
A 2019 High Court ruling by acting Chief Justice Roxane George‑Wiltshire, challenged by Christopher Ram, cemented rules preventing the removal of names unless a person was deceased or constitutionally disqualified. This decision, upheld by the Court of Appeal, created conditions for “phantom” registrations to remain on the list.
Investigations have uncovered alarming anomalies: mass registrations at single addresses, questionable “Commonwealth” IDs issued without proof of domicile, and sequentially numbered ID cards pointing to organised bulk enrolments. These conditions make the OLE vulnerable to manipulation.
Further, the 2021 Registration of Births and Deaths Amendment removed magistrate oversight for changes to birth records, making identity alterations easier without stringent safeguards — creating another potential avenue for fraudulent voter creation.
International observers, including the Carter Center and the EU Election Observation Mission, have repeatedly flagged these concerns. Yet, no substantive reforms were undertaken.
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Registration
The Official List of Electors (OLE) in Guyana grew significantly between the 2020 and 2025 General Elections, rising from approximately 661,000 registered voters in 2020 to 757,690 in 2025 — a 14.6% increase over five years. In comparison, population estimates for Guyana range between 750,000 and 836,000, depending on the source, but the absence of a 2022 national census and the government’s refusal to release it means exact figures remain unavailable.
In 2020, registered voters made up about 83.7% of the estimated population, rising to roughly 90.4% in 2025. This growth suggests robust voter registration and participation, but without authoritative census data, the precise relationship between the electorate and the population remains uncertain, underscoring the importance of transparency in electoral data.
Such a marked increase in the Official List of Electors — particularly in the absence of reliable census data — is significant under Guyana’s proportional representation system, where the presidency, legislature, and regional governments can be won or lost by a single vote. This makes the accuracy and integrity of the voter list essential to ensuring that election results truly reflect the will of the people.
Yet the register of electors — the most foundational safeguard of democracy — has long been swollen far beyond the size of the population it is meant to represent. Evidence now shows this is no accident. A complex chain of legal rulings, constitutional loopholes, and administrative anomalies has allowed the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) to preserve a voters’ list that is not merely bloated, but exploitable — a list that begins the manipulation long before the first ballot is cast.
The 2019 High Court Ruling: Locking in the List
In 2018, the A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) government allocated funds for a nationwide house‑to‑house registration exercise aimed at purging dead names, emigrants, and duplicate entries. The exercise was intended to produce a clean Official List of Electors (OLE), and the Guyana Elections Commission had already begun implementing the house‑to‑house registration process.
That plan was challenged in the High Court by applicant Christopher Ram Nandlall, who was represented by PPP executive member and parliamentarian Anil Nandlall. The challenge argued that the process violated constitutional safeguards and could disenfranchise legitimate voters.
On 14 August 2019, Chief Justice Roxane George‑Wiltshire ruled that house-to-house registration was constitutional but placed strict limits on the removal of names. Her judgment included a decisive Order of Court
“The removal of the names of persons who are already on the list of registrants and who were not, or have not been, or are not registered in the current house-to-house registration exercise with a consequence of non-inclusion in the list of electors, would be unconstitutional, unless they are deceased or disqualified pursuant to Article 159(2)… with the safeguards for removal of the names of persons pursuant to the National Registration Act, Chapter 19:08 to be strictly complied with.”
She further clarified:
“Persons cannot be removed from the national register simply because they fail to register during the ongoing house‑to‑house registration.”
The Chief Justice explicitly grounded her decision in Article 159 of the Constitution of Guyana, which states in part:
Article 159(1) — “A person shall be entitled to be registered as an elector and to vote at an election if he or she is of the age of eighteen years or upwards and is either a citizen of Guyana or a Commonwealth citizen domiciled and resident in Guyana.”
Article 159(2) — “A person shall not be entitled to be registered as an elector or to vote if he or she is—
(a) declared to be of unsound mind by a competent court;
(b) under sentence of death or imprisonment for a term of twelve months or more; or
(c) otherwise disqualified by or under any law in force relating to elections.”
That decision — upheld by the Court of Appeal — meant that unless a person was deceased or constitutionally disqualified, their name could not be removed from the register simply because they were absent or failed to re‑register. For emigrants and phantom names, this was effectively a green light.
A List Out of Proportion
By 2020, the OLE contained over 660,000 names in a country with fewer than 500,000 voting‑age residents. By 2025, that number exceeded 757,000 in a nation of fewer than 800,000 people, with nearly 30% under voting age. The mismatch was stark.
International observers have consistently raised concerns about the integrity of Guyana’s electoral lists, particularly in 2020 and 2025. The Carter Center noted that “the voter list quality was not reviewed” and that the $2 billion census data remained unavailable, casting doubt on the accuracy of the electoral roll. Similarly, the European Union Election Observation Mission highlighted issues such as “the undue advantage of incumbency and legal gaps that created an uneven playing field.” Despite these observations, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and the PPP government took no substantial action to address these concerns, leading to continued scepticism about the electoral process.
Commonwealth Nationals: A Constitutional Loophole Exploited
The Constitution permits certain Commonwealth citizens domiciled and resident in Guyana to be registered. But reports emerged that GECOM had issued National Identification Cards listing “Commonwealth” as nationality — a legal anomaly since “Commonwealth” is not a nationality under international law.
Civil society groups pointed out that such IDs undermined the residency requirement of Article 159, allowing persons without genuine domicile to be enrolled. Twelve civil organisations challenged GECOM, stating:The civil society coalition has called on GECOM to answer urgent questions, including how many non‑domiciled foreign nationals were allowed to vote, the extent of the practice, its potential impact on election outcomes, why such votes have not been invalidated, and who was responsible for issuing ID cards to non‑Guyanese voters
The civil society coalition has called on GECOM to answer urgent questions, including how many non‑domiciled foreign nationals were allowed to vote, the extent of the practice, its potential impact on election outcomes, why such votes have not been invalidated, and who was responsible for issuing ID cards to non‑Guyanese voters
This practice further inflated the voters’ list, introducing potential foreign or ineligible names into the register.
Phantom Registrants at Single Addresses
The Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) uncovered striking evidence of mass registrations at single addresses — a hallmark of register manipulation.
At Lot 5A Ogle, East Coast Demerara, the number of registered voters tied to that address rose from 9 in 2020 to 119 in 2025, with 110 of those names newly added. Identification numbers of these registrants appeared in sequential blocks, suggesting organised, bulk registration rather than individual, organic registration.
GTUC investigators described the address as “barrack‑style accommodation” housing transient workers, not a legitimate residential community. They noted this was not an isolated case; clusters of hundreds of registrants at single addresses were reported in Kitty and other PPP strongholds.
Such concentrated registration creates a pool of phantom voters that can be mobilised as a bloc — with no transparency or accountability.
How Bloated Registers Become Rigging Mechanisms
Every inflated entry is a potential vote that does not correspond to a real eligible elector. This allows for:
Dead persons to be impersonated.
Emigrants to be “activated” without proof of residence.
Mass registrations at one address to be exploited.
Questionable “Commonwealth nationals” to be included without constitutional basis.
Registration of Births and Deaths (Amendment) Act 2021
The Registration of Births and Deaths (Amendment) Act 2021, while intended to improve accessibility and fairness, contains provisions that could be exploited to facilitate fraudulent voter creation. By removing the requirement for a magistrate’s oversight and allowing individuals to change birth registration details without stringent verification, the law creates opportunities for manipulation. This could include the alteration or fabrication of identities, enabling the creation of multiple or fictitious birth records. In the context of elections, such fraudulent registrations could be used to obtain identification documents and be added to the voter registry, effectively producing “fake voters” without proper oversight. This risk is heightened by the lack of robust safeguards to verify the authenticity of changes, potentially undermining the integrity of the electoral process.
Conclusion
The voters’ list is the foundation of democracy. But in Guyana it has become a tool for manipulation. The 2019 High Court ruling by acting Chief Justice Roxane George Wiltshire entrenched a register that could only be purged under narrow constitutional conditions. By refusing reforms or constitutional amendments, the PPP government and PPP-aligned GECOM have left loopholes and anomalies, including “Commonwealth nationality” IDs and mass registrations at single addresses, unchecked, resulting in a bloated register ripe for exploitation.
To be continued….
