The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) Director of Elections, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah believes the challenges that have characterized the limited voter registration has exposed the Electoral Commission’s inefficiencies.
He said the Commission failed to heed to wise counsel from political parties and could now disenfranchise about a million prospective voters.
Mr. Afriyie Ankrah was addressing the media at the Party Head Office in Accra.
“These challenges have also exposed the operational inefficiencies within the Electoral Commission and urgent steps need to be taken to remedy the already deteriorating situation. From our monitoring and observation of the registration centres across the country, we have noticed with much concern that eventhough the EC originally plans to conduct the registration mainly as an online activity at its district centres, the online system has failed miserably.”
The exercise, which began across the country at the EC’s district offices and in over 1,000 additional centres, was largely peaceful, except for some instances of network challenges.
[contextly_sidebar id=”vqdKilx7cOnhTbPtxxnnpQRe1F4q35Hm”]A few days ago, New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Ashanti Region accused the National Democratic Congress (NDC) of deliberately frustrating people from registering in some parts of the region in the ongoing limited voter registration exercise.
The NPP in the Ashanti Region said some NDC agents deliberately delayed the registration process by raising needless disagreements.
‘Publish the number of voters’
The Minority Leader in Parliament, Haruna Iddrisu has asked the Electoral Commission (EC) to publish the number of people captured in the ongoing limited voter registration exercise.
This according to him, will ensure transparency in the wake of the challenges that have characterized the exercise in offline registration in some areas.
Haruna Iddrisu who spoke during a tour of some centres in Tamale said the offline registration defeats the purpose of the limited voter registration exercise.
“I request that the Electoral Commission publishes nationally, the outcome of each day of registration across the country. The regulation of 2016 CI 91 provides that they provide that detail to political parties. At the end of day 1, how many persons were registered? How many were challenged? How many were done offline? How many online?” he said.
The limited voters’ registration exercise took off on Monday and is expected to end on Sunday, July 7, 2019.
A total of 1,573 electoral areas have been designated nationwide to cater for persons in hard-to-reach areas after complaints by the NDC.
