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The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has called for a probe into the outcome of the just-ended voters’ register by an independent body to make sure the register is made credible.
“You can recall that when they were doing the pilot exhibition with so-called new system people will go to register and they will say they are already in the system. That is why we are calling for an independent audit of the entire register in relation to multiple registration and details of all those who have engaged in multiple registration including their photographs, ID numbers, and centres should be made available to political parties”. Mr. Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, Director of Elections of the NDC said at a news conference held in Accra Thursday.
The NDC insists it is demanding for an independent probe to address the issue of multiple registrations of registrants which the Electoral Commission has admitted already in its report.
According to Mr. Afriyie Ankrah, it would be very difficult for anyone to move from one registration centre to another to register twice or more.
“It beat our imagination that this exercise conducted by the electoral commission in the mist of the deadly pandemic, people will move from one registration centre to another to register. Why will they do that? He quizzed.
The NDC in their press briefing further stated that, it would be better for the EC investigate the causes of multiple registrations and registering of minors internally than to blame citizens for their woes.
Mr. Afrriyie Ankrah revealed “We are reliably informed that the EC’s own biometric system is defective and therefore de duplicating registrants was done by itself”.
The NDC also said it is highly suspicious of this move because the party is aware that management of EC has transferred almost all the experienced IT expert at the Headquarters to other regions.
Meanwhile the EC has already confirmed there were multiple registrations saying the process of duplication and adjudication that is currently ongoing will flag multiple registrations in the system.
Additionally, the Challenge System put in place during the registration and exhibition exercise will further flag unqualified voters on the register.
According the Electoral Commission, a total of 16,963,306 voters were captured in the provisional electoral roll, exceeding the Commission’s 15 million eligible voters’ target. The figure is slightly above the 16,845,420 registered voters in the old voter register.
