The Member of Parliament for Ashaiman, Ernest Henry Norgbey, has raised red flags over some missing names on the provisional voters’ register.
Ernest Norgbey, who couldn’t find his name in the register in the ongoing exhibition exercise, claimed that 21,000 voters in his constituency have also had their names deleted from the electoral roll.
Mr. Norgbey further accused the Electoral Commission of deliberately removing such names from the register to disenfranchise some citizens.
“We have identified over 21,000 names that have been deleted from the register and it is just unfortunate that this has happened. We had a very peaceful registration in Ashaiman. There was no chaos. There was nothing untoward and at the end of the exercise, everything was smooth.”
“So it shouldn’t be that during the exhibition, our names will not be on the register, including myself, the MP of the constituency. It’s just unfortunate that this is happening. Be that it may, it also appears that it’s a deliberate attempt by the EC to remove certain categories of people from the register because if you look at the number of people from both the Volta Region and the Northern Region that have been deleted, it could be a deliberate attempt,” he said in an interview on Eyewitness News.
He thus called on the EC to correct the anomaly as soon as possible to prevent any tension in the constituency.
Haruna Iddrisu disappointed over missing names on register
On the same issue, the Minority Leader and Member of Parliament for Tamale South, Haruna Iddrisu, raised concerns that some residents who registered to vote have not been captured on the register.
“There are major discrepancies in the register and what has been made available to registered voters,” he complained to the press.
According to the Minority Leader, he has “requested for a national compilation of these discrepancies in order to guide what will be [the Minority’s] next possible action.”
Mr. Iddrisu also expressed disappointment at the commission’s inability to make available the Biometric Verification Devices (BVDs) for verification as part of the ongoing voter exhibition exercise.
According to him, since biodata was taken during the registration exercise, it is important for the EC to test the efficacy of the biometric verification machines since it will be used for the general elections as opposed to the manual checking of names.
“My significant disappointment is that the BVDs are conspicuously absent. Yet we have provided adequate budgetary allocation for the procurement of BVDs in quantities not less than 7,500.”
