Forensic auditor Terrence Jaskaran was on Friday accepted as an expert witness in the 2020 elections fraud trial after defence attorneys challenged his qualifications and questioned whether his financial auditing experience extended to the examination of election results.
Jaskaran, a chartered accountant and forensic auditor, told the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court that he was tasked in 2021 with conducting a tabulation and analysis of certified Statements of Poll (SOPs) from the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections and comparing the figures with Form 24 declarations.
His evidence revealed significant variances in Region Four, including a difference of 20,243 votes between the total recorded on the SOPs for APNU+AFC and the March 5 Form 24 declaration.
Jaskaran testified that his tabulation of the certified SOPs produced 116,215 votes for APNU+AFC, compared with 136,458 on the March 5 Form 24. The March 13 Form 24 recorded 136,057 votes, creating a variance of 19,842 votes when compared with his SOP total.
For the PPP/C, Jaskaran’s SOP tabulation produced 80,288 votes, compared with 77,329 on the March 5 declaration and 77,231 on the March 13 declaration.
He said his exercise involved extracting the figures from each certified SOP, entering them into Excel spreadsheets by region and political party, totalling the votes and comparing those totals with the corresponding Form 24 declarations.
The defence objected to Jaskaran being treated as an expert, arguing that his experience was primarily in accounting and financial auditing and that he had not demonstrated experience in auditing elections or determining the validity of electoral results.
Counsel also questioned whether Jaskaran’s forensic work had been independently verified or peer-reviewed by another forensic auditor. Jaskaran said his professional work had undergone quality-assurance reviews by the accounting profession, with his most recent review in 2023 receiving a satisfactory assessment.
The prosecution argued that Jaskaran was not being asked to determine the legal validity of ballots, but to perform a numerical analysis by extracting, adding and comparing figures.
Principal Magistrate Faith McGusty overruled the defence objections and accepted Jaskaran as an expert, while stressing that the court would ultimately determine the weight to be given to his evidence.
McGusty said the matter “boils down to numbers” and noted that Jaskaran was being asked to analyse changes in figures rather than determine their cause.
The trial continues on Monday.
