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The National Democratic Congress (NDC) of the opposition has accused the Electoral Commission (EC) of gross negligence in the operation of the ongoing exercise of the electoral exhibition.
The Vote Display, which began on 18 September 2020, is intended to give Ghanaian voters the opportunity to authenticate their data in the EC Register of Votes.
But the NDC said yesterday at a press conference that the process has been bridled with irregularities that have made it difficult for scores of Ghanaian voters to successfully complete the process.
Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah, Director of Elections of the NDC, described the exercise as a comedy of errors and an unprecedented degree of incompetence on the part of the Electoral Commission headed by Jean Mensa in a media briefing.
According to him the EC’s actions and autocratic leadership style had resulted in many Ghanaians being unable to find their names in the new register of voters that would disfranchise many on the day of the vote.
He clarified that according to the provisions of the statute, the EC was required to include a provisional register in the form decided by the Commission for each registered political party,’ but only 35 hours before the beginning of the exhibition had been submitted to them.
Our findings show widespread anomalies at different centers throughout the world, even with the copies of the register the EC is using for the exhibition so far, anomalies have been reported by our officials and agents from all regions except Asawase in the Ashanti Area.
This has already given us reason to believe that the inconsistencies and distortions in the registry could be intentional because only our strongholds are widespread. We have come to the conclusion that it is not safe to depend on the new provisional register as the extent of distortion is incredible,’ he added.
Mr. Ankrah also accused the EC on 7 December of illegally printing and laminating undisclosed numbers of voter ID cards to rig elections.
Our attention was drawn to the EC district office in the central district of Ablekuma, where EC officials were captured late at night on camera, printing and laminating unspecified numbers of voter ID cards. This is clearly just one of the modern rigging tactics used by the EC going into this election.
“We vigorously denounce this shameful act and thievery and therefore call for an impartial investigation of this incident and ask the EC to clarify how any party might be able to print such numbers of voting ID cards while the exhibition is ongoing,” he said.
