–GECOM’s IT manager explains that his tabulation of the CEO’s SOPs had nothing to do with results declared by RO

Former Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Information Technology Manager Aneal Giddings concluded his testimony on Monday with an unequivocal account of the election server he placed in his locked vehicle during the bomb scare at the Ashmin’s Building in March 2020: he did not access, alter or tamper with it, and he did not allow anyone else to do so.

Giddings testified that the server was password-protected, with the password known only to him and two senior members of his technical team.

He said the vehicle’s keys remained with him and that, when he returned home, its spare key was where he had left it.

Defence attorneys had pressed Giddings on how the server and Statements of Poll, or SOPs, were secured when tabulation was interrupted.

Under re-examination by Special Prosecutor Latchmie Rahamat, Giddings maintained that there was no evidence the server had been breached.

Asked whether he had accessed, altered or tampered with it while it was in his vehicle, he replied: “No, I didn’t.”

Asked whether he had permitted anyone else to do so, he gave the same answer.

The trial is being heard by Principal Magistrate Faith McGusty in Georgetown.

Speaking about the testimony, Rahamat said: “Mr Giddings has maintained that the server was secured in his car, no one else was in the car, and he proceeded to the muster point.”

Giddings had earlier rejected a defence suggestion that he left the server for two unknown men to access. He said he locked the vehicle, kept the key and went to the muster point after the order to evacuate the building.

He told the court that he removed the server to protect GECOM’s information.

His account of the server forms part of a fuller explanation he gave of his team’s work in 2020. SOPs arriving at the Ashmin’s Building were logged, scanned and copied, he testified, while originals were forwarded to the office of then Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield.

Figures were entered by two separate officers, and discrepancies were reviewed before information was committed to GECOM’s database.

Giddings said the March 5 bomb threat, which turned out to be a hoax, stopped that work.

On the instruction of then Deputy Chief Elections Officer Roxanne Myers, a database administrator prepared a backup of the election data on a flash drive, which Giddings said he handed to Myers.

He separately placed the server in his vehicle and later returned it to the tabulation centre after being instructed to do so.

Monday’s questions also returned to Giddings’s custody of SOPs after tabulation stopped.

He said he considered himself duty-bound to secure, categorise and deliver the materials because members of his technical team had signed for them.

He acknowledged that he had no written authorisation to remain with the SOPs for approximately four hours, but testified that Lowenfield had authorised him verbally.

The distinction between his team’s work and the process for determining the result was central to Rahamat’s account of the evidence.

“At all times, Mr Giddings in his evidence has maintained that he was directed by a decision of the Commission to do a tabulation of the CEO’s copies of the SOPs,” she said.

She said, “And he maintained that the tabulation that he was conducting did not lead to the results of the elections.”

Rahamat said other prosecution witnesses had described a separate process downstairs at the Ashmin’s Building: the tabulation and verification of SOPs by the District Four Returning Officer (RO) and his agents, in the presence of party and international observers.

“And so those were the tabulations from which the RO’s declaration ought to have been generated,” she said.

Giddings’s earlier evidence also dealt with the District Four declarations. He testified that he uploaded documents supplied by GECOM Public Relations Officer Yolanda Ward to the Commission’s website without changing them.

When replacement declarations were sent for publication, he said he noticed changes in the figures, including approximately 400 fewer votes for APNU+AFC and 100 fewer for the PPP/C, as well as fewer spoilt ballots.

After the national recount, Giddings said he compared the recount figures with the earlier declared results and observed approximately 19,000 fewer votes for APNU+AFC. He testified that he supervised the packing of Statements of Recount after tabulation, handed them over to Lowenfield and had no further access to them.

Across his testimony, Giddings has drawn a clear line between the technical work he performed and the declaration of an election result: his team processed the CEO’s copies of SOPs; he published declarations supplied to him; and, when work was interrupted, he says he secured the server in his care.

On Monday, he answered the prosecution’s direct questions about access and tampering with a categorical no.