COVID-19: Compile new voters' register in places with no lockdown – Okudzeto to EC
- Sam Okudzeto has called on the Electoral Commission (EC) to commence the voters’ registration exercise at places where the lockdown is not being enforced
- According to him, the pandemic is not as serious in Ghana as it is in other parts of the world
- He, however, advised the EC compile the new voters' register in batches
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A senior legal practitioner and former President of the Ghana Bar Association, Sam Okudzeto, has called on the Electoral Commission (EC) to commence the voters’ registration exercise at places where the lockdown is not being enforced.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic which has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands globally, the EC called off its planned activity scheduled for April 18, 2020, when the president announced a ban on public gatherings.
Speaking in an interview on CitiFM's Eyewitness News, the former council of state member said the EC can compile the voters’ register in batches.
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Okudzeto mentioned that the COVID-19 pandemic is not as serious in Ghana as it is in certain parts of the world and thus, we could take advantage of that to register Ghanaians.
“Our cases of the Coronavirus is not as dramatic as it is in many countries. So since the lockdown is not the whole of Ghana, the EC should start the registration in areas where there is on lockdown,” he said.
Certain parts of the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area including Tema and Kasoa as well as the Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Area are currently under a partial lockdown in a bid to check the spread of the disease.
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Meanwhile, the initiative to compile a new voters' register has been met with firece opposition by the National Democratic Congress, and certain political stakeholders in the country over certain unresolved issues.
This same issue of compiling a new voters' register has led to political parties coming together to demonstrate against the initiative by the EC.
The NDC held the view that this new register could lead to rigging and over voting in the 2020 general elections
A key new feature the EC cited is the introduction of a facial recognition option in addition to fingerprint verification as part of the verification option in the new voters' register.
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Source: YEN.com.gh
