Voters Register: Contested cases based on stereotypes, party affiliation – Seidu

A Senior Political Science lecturer, Dr. Alidu Seidu has said that the contestation of some over 30,000 people during the just ended voters registration process was done based on stereotypes.

He mentioned party affiliation, the inability to speak a language and also the way the individual looked as parameters for the decision to counter their nationality.

“You can’t tell who a minor or foreigner is. Most of the challenges were done on party lines, he said”

The EC has announced it will set a committee to investigate these cases.

Speaking on Starr FM’s ‘Analyses’, the political scientist noted “I think sometimes we are the cause of our problems as people. The Electoral Commission should have admitted that we can’t have an entirely perfect register.”

He insisted that the EC gave an impression from the beginning that they were capable of compiling a problem-free register, compared to what we had earlier and that’s created trust issues.”

Pollster Ben Ephson who joined the show via phone, commenting on the same issue indicated “what if the EC had said no minor or foreigner registered and these people go through the process and some of them can’t defend their age and nationality, the EC would have been in a fix.”

“I think it would be a bit reckless for the EC to have said no minor or foreigner registered,” he added.