NDC calls for independent audit of new voters’ register
Battle of the Press Conferences I – the National Democratic Congress says figures on the provisional electoral roll do not stand up to scrutiny
The National Democratic Congress is demanding an independent audit of the new voters’ register, compiled by the Electoral Commission against the December general election.
The NDC believes that a comprehensive audit will address questions it has raised since it observed false matches because of system failure during the pilot registration exercise.
The party’s director of elections, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, who made this call during a news conference at the NDC’s headquarters in Accra, believes that an audit will avert the potential disenfranchisement of eligible voters.
Vote for John and Jane
“Ghanaians will recall that one of the justifications the Electoral Commission used to spend our taxes on this needless register was the fact it needed to replace its system with a robust one including facial recognition technology. But what happened to that?” he asked.
“We wish to call on all our supporters to be extremely vigilant as we go through the process of deduplication, exhibition, balloting and voting day on 7 December,” the NDC man said.
“Just as you came out in your numbers to register, we are encouraging you to come out in your numbers during the exhibition to confirm your names. And let us work hard to mobilise all our supporters, including millions of disappointed Ghanaians, to vote for the John and Jane ticket,” he urged the audience.
Afriyie expressed displeasure about President Akufo-Addo’s swiftness in responding to the expulsion of 13 final-year senior high school students who were sitting their West African Senior School Certificate Examinations but failure to react to the outbreaks of violence and intimidation which characterised the voter registration process that closed to the wider public on 6 August.
Surely some inconsistency?
The party claims that the Electoral Commission has shared inconsistent numbers during its “Let the Citizen Know” series of media encounters.
“Also, data collected for the seventh, eighth and ninth days of the nationwide exercise was reported differently based on the EC’s figures,” Afriyie Ankrah said.
Party officials also alleged that the registration centre reserved for the aged in Effigya in the Ashanti Region was used to register minors in the district.
Fred Dzakpata
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