Political Science Lecturer at the University of Ghana, Dr. Ransford Gyampo, has chastised the Electoral Commission (EC) over the conduct of the limited voters’ registration exercise on university campuses.
He argues that the situation where students faced difficulties in registering owing to inadequate centres on campus exposed the EC as ill- prepared for the exercise.
[contextly_sidebar id=”7F63EpzpuAXs1GUM6DaAXaXQiFXVEmXB”]“Generally, if you look at cases like University of Ghana, I think the EC didn’t do a very good job there because they should have known that we have so many people who had turned 18 and wanted to register and yet they went to the school and provided only one printer so everyday people get up at dawn to queue and within a day, you have around 80 to 100 people registering out of 7,000…”
Speaking to Bernard Avle on the Ghana Report on Viasat One, Dr. Gyampo emphasized the need for the Commission to conduct a special exercise on the university campuses to register students who could not do so during the limited registration exercise.
“…If you have people who clearly have not been able to register but they have shown that they are willing and able and they are determined to register give them an opportunity.”
There have been calls for an extension
Some individuals and stakeholders including the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) made similar calls on the Electoral Commission (EC) to extend the limited voters’ registration exercise a few days after the Commission completed it.
In an interview with Citi News, the Executive Director of the IEA, Jean Mensa, urged the EC to extend the period to allow more people to register.
“ I will say that to some extent it has gone very well and a number of people have been registered. However we followed the process quite carefully and we are also aware that there are many others who would wish to be registered who did not have the opportunity and I know that we have said it will be proper that we do not disenfranchise people who are willing to vote or cast their vote for the first time .”
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By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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