The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has charged the Electoral Commission to publish the names it had deleted from the country’s voters’ register for the upcoming general elections.
At least 30,000 names had been expunged from Ghana’s electoral register, according to the EC.
The affected persons were said to have engaged in multiple registrations or were challenged and not cleared by the various district review committees.
They would, therefore, not be able to take part in the December 7 polls and further barred from registering as voters for a period of time.
Commenting on the development during a special sitting of parliament with critical state institutions on the 2020 polls, the Chairperson of the NCCE, Josephine Nkrumah charged the EC to publish the deleted names, arguing that would ensure that those affected can seek redress.
“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,” she said.
Announcing the deletion of the names in October the spokesperson of the electoral management body, Sylvia Annor explained that the names of about 30,000 registered voters had been deleted or expunged from the provisional voters’ register because they were either on the exceptions lists or the multiple lists.
“The multiple lists are made up of names of all those who engaged in double voting during the voter’s registration exercise,” she said.
In the meantime, the EC rejected claims that it disrespected Parliament by snubbing the lawmaking chamber’s invitation to present its roadmap for the conduct of election 2020.
Billed to brief Members of Parliament (MPs) by the Commission preparedness level towards peaceful and successful polls, Chairperson, Jean Mensah failed to show up, forcing the suspension of sitting by Speaker Prof Mike Oquaye.
But in a statement on Thursday, November 5, 2020, the EC disputed the assertion that it had disrespected Parliament.
According to the election management body, it received the invitation to brief Parliament late on Wednesday.
“The Commission is greatly surprised by this turn of events as notice of the said meeting reached it late Wednesday, November 4, 2020, at a time when some Commission members were outside Accra. This was communicated to the Leadership of Parliament.
“…the Chairperson of the Commission has never turned down an invitation of the August House. The Commission and its Leadership view Parliament as an important democratic institution and have always fully cooperated with Honourable members,” the statement said.
