General News of Friday, 12 December 2008

Source: GNA

No protest about minor voting in Wa Central Constituency

Wa, Dec. 12, GNA - Public outcry about large numbers of minor's registration in the Voters Register had not manifested in the just ended general elections in the Wa Central Constituency, Mr. Lucas Yiryel, Wa Municipal Electoral Officer has said. He said there was no protest about any minor voting during the polls in the constituency.

"What really came up were few cases where some voters came and realized that other people had voted in their names. "That mistake came from Polling Assistants manning 'Table One' who through the stress of their eyes mistakenly tipped the names of those who came to vote in place of those who had not yet come out to vote," Mr Yiryel explained.

Mr Yiryel made these known in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Wa on Friday.

He said some of the polling centres in the constituency were large and that made voting cumbersome and posed challenges to the Presiding Officers, Polling Assistants and Party Agents as well as the voters. Mr Yiryel suggested the breaking down of large polling centres to smaller ones to help facilitate smooth and quick voting at the centres. He commended the electorate in the constituency and the security personnel as well as the media for the orderly and peaceful manner they conducted the elections, saying: "Let us repeat that in the run-off, since peace is everyone making it work".

Meanwhile, both the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) had started serious campaigns in the rural communities with persuasive messages to encourage the electorate to turn out and exercise their franchise in the run off on December 28.