Concerns have been raised about the low turnout at some polling stations during the voter’s exhibition exercise.
The voters’ exhibition exercise, which allowed qualified and registered voters to check their names on the electoral roll, ended on Sunday.
The three-week long exercise, began on Monday 18th July and ran until Sunday August 7th.
A few political parties spoke to Citi News on why they thought the exercise had such low participation.
[contextly_sidebar id=”PEkt9u3gprwfgeFPI6gW7RAiUsoWA5Xe”]Deputy General Secretary for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Koko Anyidoho, explained that the electronic verification meant less people had to make the trip to exhibition centers.
“With the introduction of electronic verification, I am not surprised that the turnout is much lower than times past. People can sit in the comfort of their homes and offices, they can be in their vehicles and they can just check their names on the register electronically” he said.
CPP’s take
The Convention People’s Party(CPP) also blamed the NPP and the NDC for the apathy showed by Ghanaians.
“The NDC and NPP have failed Ghanaians. Now Ghanaians do not have any real reason for taking part in the exercise,” the Communications Director for the CPP, Abdul Rauf Kadir said.
PNC
Speaking to Citi News, the General Secretary for the People’s National Convention (PNC) said low publicity and the inability of the EC to take advice on effective ways of improving publicity for the exercise partly contributed to the problem.
“If you look at what happened during the limited registration exercise, it was characterized by low publicity and low turnout. The Electoral Commission is not paying attention to the advice that is being given relating to the need to increase its publicity for these activities,”he said.
The EC announced its intention to resume the re-registration of deleted NHIS registrants from Friday August 5 to August 12 as well as set dates for continuous voter registration on August 19 and 27 to allow those eligible to vote, to take part in the registration exercise for the December 7 polls.
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By: Kwabena Agyare/citifmonlie.com/Ghana