The criminal trial into alleged manipulation of Guyana's March 2020 General and Regional Elections resumed on Monday after a three month recess. Proceedings at the Georgetown Magistrates' Court focused on testimony from Yolanda Ward, Public Relations Officer for the Guyana Elections Commission, who described the internal handling of the election's disputed public data.

Appearing before Magistrate Faith McGusty, Ward set out the administrative chain of command behind the publication of election results on the commission's website. She told the court that her role was limited to preparing and transmitting information supplied directly by the then GECOM Chairperson, retired Justice Claudette Singh. The technical work of uploading the results fell to Aneal Giddings, the commission's IT Manager at the time.

Ward described how the process began with images of declarations from all ten electoral districts, delivered to her on a flash drive and then emailed to Giddings for publication online. She said this initial upload reflected the results as they were first reported by regional officers.

The court heard that this arrangement did not hold. On 14 March 2020, Ward received instructions to remove the published forms for District 4, a constituency at the centre of the wider dispute, and to replace them with new documents originating from the office of then Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield. The replacement forms carried the signatures of Clairmont Mingo, the District 4 Returning Officer, and government minister Volda Lawrence. Ward said she acted on the instruction without independently verifying the new figures, a point that would later draw scrutiny from investigators.

Further changes followed as the political crisis over the result deepened through the middle of the year. Ward testified that on 22 July 2020, Justice Singh directed her to remove all election declarations from the GECOM website entirely. Two days later, on 24 July, a further instruction reversed course, ordering that the officially gazetted results be published in their place. Ward said she carried out both directives as instructed, without seeking clarification on the reasons behind either decision.

Under cross-examination, defence counsel pressed Ward on her degree of independent judgement in the matter. She maintained throughout that she had acted strictly within her administrative remit, following instructions passed down from her superiors rather than exercising discretion of her own. She also told the court that she was summoned by Justice Singh in September 2020 to give a formal statement to the Criminal Investigations Department concerning the management of the website during the disputed period.

The case forms part of a broader prosecution stemming from the 2020 election. Nine individuals face charges, among them Lowenfield, Mingo, Lawrence and former Deputy Chief Elections Officer Roxanne Myers. Prosecutors allege the group conspired to manipulate the declared outcome in favour of the incumbent APNU+AFC coalition, with the aim of denying victory to the People's Progressive Party/Civic, which had won the most votes. The charges relate specifically to the handling of the District 4 results, which prosecutors say were altered to inflate the vote total recorded for the coalition.

Ward's testimony is regarded by observers of the trial as significant because it establishes, in detail, the sequence in which instructions travelled from the commission's leadership down to junior administrative staff responsible for the website. Her account did not attribute the substance of the disputed figures to her own office, but it confirmed the mechanics by which those figures reached the public domain and were subsequently withdrawn and replaced.

The disputed count triggered a five month political standoff in Guyana, during which the outgoing government resisted certifying the results. The impasse was eventually resolved after regional and international pressure led to a recount, confirming the PPP/C's victory. Irfaan Ali was sworn in as president in August 2020, ending the stalemate.

The trial continues, with former IT Manager Aneal Giddings expected to give further testimony on the technical handling of the commission's website and the sequence of uploads and deletions during the disputed period.

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