Don’t blame us for missing names in voting list – EC tells officers

Ghana’s Electoral Commission has absolved itself of any blame in the issue of missing names of some security personnel and others that characterised the nationwide Special Voting exercise in this year’s general elections.

Hundreds of special voters engaged for electoral duties on December 7 could not cast their vote in the first round of special voting on Thursday due to widespread exclusion of names; a situation that prompted a second round of voting Sunday.

The situation was no different Sunday as most of the personnel could again not find their names on the special register at their respective polling centres across the country.

However, a statement issued by the Electoral Commission Sunday said reports from its regional officers across the country as at midday Sunday, December 4 indicated the exercise has been smooth in all constituencies.

“At Midday, all our regional directors confirmed that voting has gone on smoothly at all the 275 constituencies except the few cases of some officers whose names are not on the special voters list. That is not the fault of the Commission,” the statement said.

Notwithstanding, the Commission says the affected persons “still have the chance to vote on Election Day. We have advised their respective high commands to deploy them to work at the polling stations where they registered, so they can vote,”.

The Commission said those who qualified to vote in the two rounds of the Special Voting exercise were those whose names appeared on the list of special voters, noting it “never stated anywhere that it was going to compile a new list of Special Voters for today’s exercise.

“Being an officer of the security agencies does not give you an automatic right to vote anywhere you wish to. Procedures must be complied with,” it stated.

Earlier, Head of Communications at the EC, Eric Kofi Dzakpasu explained to TV3 Sunday that the affected officers could vote on Wednesday if their names were indeed not on the special voters’ list.