Source: Myjoyonline.com
Some political parties are questioning the competence of the Electoral Commission (EC) after it admitted another error in its provisional voter registration update.
At the end of Day 11 of the limited registration exercise, the EC figures suggested 459,291 had been registered.
However, 11 hours after posting the figures, the EC admitted errors, stating that Greater Accra Region was wrongly repeated for Upper East Region on the slide on challenge cases earlier published.
The political parties are not happy and are questioning the EC’s competence in the entire exercise.
However, the Deputy EC Chairperson in charge of Operations, Samuel Tettey, says the Commission will not hide from its mistakes and will work to make improvements.
“On the issue of mistakes in infographs that the Commission acknowledged and corrected, it is important to reiterate that those mistakes did not affect the actual number of registered voters per district or region. All the political parties with agents at the various registration centres including the NDC have the same registered voter figures as the Commission.”
“As a Commission, we will not hide from our mistakes. What is more important is that we identify why the mistakes happened and why they were not detected before publication. We have since put in place a system that will make sure that this never happens again,” he said.
General Secretary of the NDC, Fifi Kwetey says the misrepresentation of the figures is a clear attempt by the EC to rig the elections.
“This situation exemplifies what we term, transpositional rigging of election, where figures are shuffled between categories without affecting the overall total,”he argued.
Communication Officer with the Movement for Change, Courage Boti says the development is eroding confidence in the electoral system.
“It is worrying that some of these errors continue to occur. Our greater worry is that it raises doubts about the capacity of the Commission, and about the integrity of the Commission.
“And that casts doubts on the election and I don’t think it is proper for our democracy,” Mr Boti said.
He further called for an audit of the EC and its personnel to ensure the smooth running of its processes.
The 21-day exercise is expected to end on May 27, 2024.
Meanwhile, the EC has hinted at the possibility of extending the limited voters’ registration period if deemed necessary to accommodate all eligible citizens.
Source: www.myjoyonline.com
