Election 2020: EC to start voter registration exercise in June

The Electoral Commission (EC) will begin the voter registration exercise next month, June 2020.

The exercise is expected to last till July 2020.

This was disclosed to Citi News by the General Secretary of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), John Boadu after he took part in the first of a two-session IPAC meeting held today, Wednesday on the controversial issue.

“The Electoral Commission has slated the registration on June ending and very soon per the law, 21 days to any national exercise, they [EC] will have to inform us. The specific date will be given to us in the course of time. This means it will take almost about 40 days and they will be finishing the exercise by the end of July as well,” he said.

The opposition National Democratic Congress boycotted the meeting claiming that it was improperly convened.

Peter Boamah Otokunor, a Deputy General Secretary of the NDC, explained that: “That meeting does not constitute a proper IPAC meeting because they had divided one committee into groups; you may want to call it double tracking, to decide on the same issue. And we think that with any such an approach, you are not going to properly appreciate and understand the issue and contributions from various political parties and we believe that, decision making will be problematic.”

The Electoral Commission’s decision to compile a new voters’ register has been met with mixed reactions from the political front.

Whereas the NDC and some opposition parties are against the decision, the NPP and twelve other political parties have backed the move.

Despite the opposition, the EC was scheduled to embark on the exercise in April 2020, but it called it off following the outbreak of the Coronavirus disease in the country.

The EC subsequently said it will adopt safety measures if the time comes for the registration exercise to commence.

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