EC urges electorate to take registration seriously

Ho, Feb. 28, GNA -- Dr Kwadwo Afari-Djan, Chairman of the Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC) has advised voters not to discount the importance of the exhibition of the voters register before elections and after re-registration exercises.

He said from previous experience, only 25 to 30 per cent of voters visited the various polling stations to verify their names and also to confirm the correctness or otherwise of other particulars. Dr Afari-Djan was speaking at one of the series of regional seminars for representatives of Political Parties and the Press on next months Voters Registration Exercise in Ho.

He said the exercise was to correct anomalies such as missing names, wrong placements and should not be taken for granted. Dr Afari-Djan also advised Journalists who would go round during the registration exercise to pick the right words to avoid sending wrong signals.

He said for example, the EC would find reports of shortages of registration forms strange, when all regions would have more than the estimated number of qualified voters.

Dr Afari-Djan said a bottle of indelible ink should mark between 500-600 people if it was applied properly and only with the "applicator" and not chewed tips of chewing stick.

He said all registration officials were expected to stick the indelible inks in milk tins filled with sand to prevent spillage. Dr Afari-Djan cautioned that any attempt to fake the registration forms would be a futile one since the unauthorised ones would be rejected during scanning.

He implored Political Parties to delegate only responsible agents to monitor the registration exercise and suggested that each Political Party could assign two agents to one polling station to monitor the process.