Limited voters’ registration: EC doing trial and error exercise – PNC Chair

Chairman of the People’s National Convention (PNC) Bernard Mornah has accused the Electoral Commission of overseeing a trial and error exercise with the ongoing limited voters’ registration exercise, and not attaching seriousness to the all-important exercise.

According to the PNC Chairman, despite critical issues raised by his party and other political parties regarding decentralizing the exercise to give every new voter an opportunity to register, the EC has turned a deaf ear to their concerns.

The ongoing limited voters’ registration exercise by the Electoral Commission is to enable persons who attained voting age of 18 since the last election as well as eligible voters to register and take part in the next elections.

Mr. Mornah on TV3’s The Key Points program on Saturday said failure of the Commission to decentralize the system leaves room for many eligible voters to be denied their right because they do not have easy access to registration centers.

“It appears that the EC is doing a trial and error exercise in this all-important assignment, and personally I do not think that it goes to the advantage of any other person, except to say we in the PNC whose votes largely come from the rural communities we feel disadvantaged by the conduct and we feel that the EC is denying a large chunk of the people who would have voted for us.”

The PNC Chairman said the PNC together with other political parties advised the Commission ahead of the exercise to move into communities and carry out the exercise instead of limiting it to its District offices across the country, but the EC did not rescind its decision.



Limited voters’ registration matters

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has also raised issues with the manner in which the registration exercise is being conducted, stating that the EC is doing so in an attempt to disenfranchise people.

The Commission, however, went ahead to carry out the exercise at the offices as planned.

At a press conference in Accra Thursday, the NDC alleged that some NPP thugs were causing mayhem at some district offices and that although the attention of the EC was drawn to it, nothing was done about the situation.

Despite these concerns, the exercise is still ongoing and is due to come to an end on Friday, July 5, 2019.