Missing names: EC locks up 17,000 ‘voters’ …as exhibition ends

The fate of some seventeen thousand (17,000) prospective voters in the December elections hangs in the balance as the Electoral Commission (EC) struggles to add their names to the voters roll.

The electoral body headed by Mrs. Jean Adukwei Mensa is scratching its head over how to restore the missing names particularly as the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is accusing the Commission of deliberately removing the names of its supporters in some areas from the register.

To worsen matters, the EC yesterday ended its voter exhibition exercise, leaving many to wonder how registered voters whose names have not yet been added to the list would vote in the December 7 elections.

The exercise, which began on September 18, 2020 in over thirty thousand exhibition centres nationwide was originally expected to end on Friday, September 25 but was extended for two more days to make it up for those whose names were conspicuously missing from the voters roll.

No Names

The NDC’s Flagbearer on Thursday said the party will not accept results of the polls if the anomalies are not corrected, dropping names of some areas the party claimed there were massive missing names in the register.

He mentioned among others the Narang-Saago Primary School, in the Binduri Constituency of the Upper East Region were not a single person out of four hundred and forty-four (444) registered could find their names on the register.

Mr. Mahama said at both the Tempielim Primary School and Kumpalgooga registration centres, no name was found on the voters register despite the registration of 428 and 392 people respectively.

In 18 other centres in the same constituency, 6,341 names were omitted from the registration while in Jirapa in the Upper West Region, a total of 2,057 names were nowhere to be found on the register in five centres.

The case was not different at the Klottey Korle Constituency in Greater Accra Region where 2,054 people who registered in some 12 centres, did not find their names.

In Krowor, also in the Greater Accra, cases of duplicated card numbers were recorded in as eight centres affecting 2,453 people.

In Ketu South, 6,158 names were missing. In Anlo, 984 names could not be found. In Akatsi South, 426 names were omitted while in Ketu North, 260 names were not found. § Again, in Keta, 275 people could not find their names on the register.

Names Found?

But the EC says it has retrieved most of the missing names that were detected in the newly compiled voters’ register during the exhibitions exercise.

The Commission’s Director of Electoral Services, Dr Serebour Quaicoe on Joy FM’s Newsfile show said the Commission is left with 17,000 names more to completely rectify the anomalies identified.

According to him, political stakeholders should not insist that the register is not credible due to the missing or voter’s identification number duplicates since the exhibition process is to help identify the issues of the register and duly correct them.

“That is why this is a provisional register. A provisional register in the sense that it is not final, there are a lot of things that have to happen including the exhibition exercise to happen and correct the issues found,” he stated.

Reiterating his stance, Dr Quaicoe said although criticisms from stakeholders are welcome, accusing the EC of certain intentional acts that would otherwise disrupt the democratic process of the country is unwarranted.

“The machines are operated by human beings and human beings will make the mistakes and the machine will generate it and when it is detected we do the correction.

“So they should understand that anything that has happened during the registration during and after the exhibition, so by the time the final register is out, all these challenges that we detected will not be found,” he stressed.