Early voting troubles wakeup call for EC – Brenya

The challenges that plagued the special voting exercise organised by the Electoral Commission (EC) on Thursday, 1 December is a wakeup call for the election management body ahead of the main elections on December 7, Dr Edward Brenya, a political science lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), has said.

The exercise was marred by missing names of persons supposed to be on the special voters’ list.

Persons who participated in the exercise included military personnel as well as personnel from the other security agencies, journalists, and officials of the Electoral Commission.

Although 127,394 persons were expected to vote, many were disenfranchised when they found out their names were missing from the list on voting day, resulting in skirmishes at some polling centres.

Speaking in relation to this development in an interview on Ghana Yensom on Accra100.5FM on Friday December 2, Dr Brenya said: “Happenings in the special voting are a wakeup call for the EC ahead of the main elections on December 7. The EC has to ensure that all voters have their names on the register.

“I believe strongly that what happened yesterday will be a big lesson for the Electoral Commission to ensure that on December 7, those challenges are not experienced.”