EC defends decision to give voters second registration chance

No law was violated in relation to the one-day registration to capture additional applicants on to the new voter registration, the Electoral Commission (EC) has stated.

The exercise is to capture qualified voters who were trapped abroad as a result of COVID-19 restrictions and those who were under quarantine in Ghana during the initial registration period, among others.

“As far as the Commission is concerned, we haven’t flouted any law,” Acting Director of Public Affairs of EC, Mrs Sylvia Annoh, said on October 1, on the day of the exercise.

According to her, “even after today somebody will turn 18 years old, somebody will travel outside and come into the country. The fact still remains that you have people qualifying each and every day but at the end of the day, there has to be a cut-off point to plan” and execute the 2020 elections.

Ahead of the registration, the opposition NDC dragged the EC to court to seek an injunction.

The NDC was of the view that one-day exercise was in breach of the country’s electoral regulations.

The NDC stated that the Commission did not publish in the gazette a 21 days’ notice of the planned exercise in accordance with the laws governing elections in Ghana.

They were seeking “a declaration that the Electoral Commission has acted ultra vires in its attempt to reopen and/or conduct registration of voters scheduled for Thursday 1st October 2020 when the Electoral Commission has not caused to be published in the Gazette, twenty-one (21) days’ notice of this voters registration to the political parties and the general public”.

However, the Accra High Court ordered that the NDC come on notice properly.

But Mrs Annoh explained that the EC had not been served with any injunction.

Mop-up

The EC opened the registration at 7 am and expected to end at 6 pm. At about 10 am, when theghanareport.com visited one of the centres at Kaneshie, close to about 100 people had gathered to register for the exercise.

There were large numbers of applicants at various district offices who had to formed long winding queues in anticipation to compete the registration process.