A forensic accountant has testified that his analysis of certified Statements of Poll (SoPs) from Guyana’s 2020 elections found a 20,243-vote difference between the figures recorded for APNU+AFC in Region Four and those contained in a March 5 Form 24 declaration.
Terrence Jaskaran, a chartered accountant who was engaged by the Ministry of Home Affairs as a forensic audit consultant and attached to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Headquarters, gave evidence on Friday in the ongoing trial arising from the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections. Jaskaran told the court that he was asked by Police Officer Nigel Stephens to conduct a tabulation and analysis of certified copies of SoPs from the elections and compare the figures with declarations contained in Form 24.
He said he accompanied Stephens and a police prosecutor to the office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Judicature, where copies of the Region Four SoPs were made and certified. Jaskaran said he observed the certification process.
He began the analysis at CID Headquarters on June 3, 2021, using Excel spreadsheets to record the votes on each SoP by ballot box and political party. He then totalled the figures and compared them with the corresponding Form 24 declarations.
For the Region Four General Election, Jaskaran testified that his analysis of the certified SoPs recorded 116,215 votes for APNU+AFC.
That figure was compared with 136,458 votes recorded for APNU+AFC in the March 5 Form 24 declaration, representing a difference of 20,243 votes.
The March 13 Form 24 declaration recorded 136,057 votes for APNU+AFC, compared with the 116,215 votes in Jaskaran’s SoP tabulation, a difference of 19,842 votes.
For the PPP/C, the certified SoPs recorded 80,288 votes, compared with 77,329 votes in the March 5 Form 24 declaration, a difference of 2,959 votes. The March 13 declaration recorded 77,231 votes, representing a difference of 3,057 votes from the SoP total.
Jaskaran also outlined variances involving several of the smaller parties that contested the elections.
His evidence was confined to the numerical comparison between the certified SoPs and the Form 24 declarations. When his report was tendered, the court indicated that his testimony would be limited to those comparisons.
Despite objections from defence attorneys, Magistrate Faith McGusty accepted Jaskaran as an expert in forensic analysis, accounting and auditing. The defence had questioned whether his professional experience extended to auditing election results, while the prosecution argued that his role was to analyse and compare the numerical information contained in the election documents.
Jaskaran told the court that he has worked in accounting, finance and forensic auditing for more than a decade. He is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) in the United Kingdom, a member of the Forensic Certified Public Accountant Society in the United States, and a practising chartered accountant and registered member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Guyana.
His testimony was adjourned until Monday, when he is expected to continue giving evidence on the March 13 Form 24 declaration and the corresponding PPP/C figures.