With a day to go for the end of the ten-day re-registration of persons whose names have been deleted from the voters’ register, the Electoral Commission has said it is yet to take a decision on extending the exercise.
The largest opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has called on the Electoral Commission (EC) to extend the exercise as thousands of Ghanaians would be disenfranchised if the exercise is not extended.
At a press conference on Monday in the Ashanti Region, the Regional Secretary of the party Sam Pyne claimed the change in the duration of the exercise from 21 days to 10 days has contributed to low turnout for the re-registration process.
“The EC never came out to give education on the time frame because when they announced that they were going to do the exhibition, they said 21 days,” he said.
“A lot of people thought that even if you were going to re-register, it is going to be within the 21 days therefore a lot of people have slowed down in even going to do the registration, meanwhile they are doing it to for 10-days, and this is the eighth day,” he adds.
The EC has revealed that only 14,801 persons of the 56,772 whose names were deleted from the voters’ register, have re-registered in the ongoing voters’ register exhibition exercise.
The move by the EC is in compliance of orders of the Supreme Court which said the use of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) card to register to vote, is a process deemed unconstitutional.
The low turnout has been partly blamed on the supposed poor publicity of the re-registration exercise.
But the Public Affairs Director of the Electoral Commission, Eric Dzakpasu stated that the EC will have to do an assessment of the re-registration exercise before an extension of the exercise which ends today Thursday July 28, is announced.
“For a project of this magnitude having set a deadline for the end of the exercise it very important to get feedback from field operators in the Regions and Districts then we take a holistic look at the entire exercises and consider the concerns and challenges after which the Commission will take a definite position and then come back to the Ghanaian public.”
