Why the EC says it won’t publish names of 30,000 prohibited voters

The Electoral Commission (EC) has shot down calls for the publication names of voters prohibited from the upcoming polls.

The commission’s Director of Elections, Dr Serebour Quarcoo, said about 30,000 affected persons are by themselves aware of their ineligibility to participate in the elections hence there would not be a need to make public their names.

“If you registered more than once, you know you have more than one ID card, you yourself you know you have registered more than once and I shouldn’t tell you. I don’t need to publish your name before you know.”

There had been calls from groups and state institutions like the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) for the EC to do so.

But the electoral body said it sees no reason in doing so.

Last week, the Chairperson of the NCCE, Josephine Nkrumah called on the EC to publish names deleted from the voters’ register.

According to her, over 16,000 persons whose names have been expunged from the register may not be aware of the situation and may turn up at the voting centres on election day.

Madam Nkrumah was of the view that the situation could cause chaos at polling stations.

“A lot of these names, about 16,000 of them are not even aware that on the day of voting they will get to the polling station and most likely be turned away. What we do at that critical time is of utmost importance,” Josephine Nkrumah said.

But Dr Quarcoo disagreed.

He said the EC’s systems were able to identify persons who had registered multiple times at different polling stations and had flagged them.

He indicated that although the names of such persons were still in the register, they would not be able to vote and reasons for their exclusion from the eligible voters would be stated in the register.

“People thought that once they were not caught at the registration centre, they have succeeded in getting away with it… They are in the register, but they are inactive and on the day of the elections, when the list goes to the polling stations, your name will appear but if you registered three times, the attire you wore at all the three centres will come,” he indicated.