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Special Voting: 109,557 registered Ghanaians to Vote Today

Ghana's Electoral Commission Chairperson, Jean Mensa
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Source: www.thenewindependentonline.com

According to the Electoral Commission of Ghanz (EC) some 109,557 Ghanaians made up of security personnel, media practitioners and staff of the Electoral Commission, are expected to participate in the special voting exercise today, 1 December 2020 across the country at disignated polling centers mostly police stations.

The early voting exercise is mostly for registered voters who fall in these three categories namely, the security, media practitioners as well as the staff of the Electoral Commission of Ghana ssince they would be on duty on the day of elections, 7th December, 2020.

Briefing the press at the EC headoffice in Accra on the eve of the special voting day exercise, the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission of Ghana, Mrs Jean Mensa, explained that, the Commission reached out to Security agencies and the various media houses through the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) to inform them to send details of their members who wish to take part in this year special voting exercise to the Commission.

And it was based on this that, the list of Special Voting was compiled for today’s exercise.

“The list has been published on the website of the Commission and additionally, the Commission has made it possible for persons on the Special Voting List to check their details using the short Code, *711*2020#.

Madam Jean Mensa encouraged all who applied to take time to check their details before Tuesday, 1st December, 2020.

Giving further details about the early voting, Mrs Mensa said acknowledged that, “This year, the Commission has provided the special voting list to representatives of institutions who applied to vote during the special voting..

Whiles the final special voting list contains one hundred and nine thousand five hundred and fifty-seven persons (109,557 Persons) from the various security agencies, media house and the Electoral Commission”.

This number she described as the highest number the Commission has recorded for special voting in its history.

Meanwhile, she also denied the claims of names of some security personnel been deliberately deleted from the special voting list, adding that, even some names that were presented after the deadline, were considered.

It is also important to mention that the Commission received a number of names well after deadline, while some were considered, others came a little too late after the data base had been frozen.

“Once the data base is frozen no changes/transfers can be made. All lists received after the data freezes could not be processed”, she indicated.

The EC Chair therefore urged the public to disregard information going round on social media by some ‘experts’ that the Commission has prevented security agencies from registering.

Stressing, “This is not true. Every officer who applied on time, and provided the correct ID card number was duly registered”.

“Unfortunately”, she added: “we rather had an issue with our media partners who have collaborated with us all this while. There were some discrepancies regarding the lists submitted by the GJA.

Emphasizing that, “The soft copy of the list was different from the hard copy which contained more Applicants. Unfortunately, this was not made known to the Electoral Commission’s team”.

“As such, only the names in the soft copy were reflected in the special voting list, however the Commission regrets this and wishes to assure the GJA and NMC and Journalists in general of our support to their efforts.

To this effect, the Commission has instructed its field officials to give preferential treatment to media personnel who possess the accreditation cards of the Electoral Commission.

In all, Mrs Mensa noted that “all is set for the special voting on Tuesday”, adding: “To date, officers have been recruited and trained”.

Also, she noted, “all materials have been distributed in sufficient quantities and the BVD’s prepared and deployed”.

On turnout, the Electoral Commission Chair is hopeful of a near 100% turnout and is confident that the outcome will be peaceful, credible transparent and orderly God being our helper.

Quoting the good book, “a horse is prepared for battle but victory comes from God”, the Commission will keep the general public updated on the outcome of the Special Voting in the course of the week through the media.

Source: www.thenewindependentonline.com