A member of pressure group Occupy Ghana, Sydney Casely-Hayford plans to challenge the eligibility of every person on the voters register.<\/p>\n
According to him when the Electoral Commission begins the exhibition of the voters register in the coming weeks, \u201cI will recruit 29,000 people and assign each of them to a polling station and when they go to the polling station, they are supposed to challenge everybody\u2019s name on the polling register.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Casely-Hayford who made the disclosure on Citi FM\u2019s news analysis programme, The Big Issue<\/strong> on Saturday said his action is legal because it is backed by the Constitutional Instrument (C.I.) 91.<\/p>\n [contextly_sidebar id=”et6IK9r1NGmFAPj0e73kss6OShmLUcDm”]\u201cAs for me, I\u2019m going to my polling station in McCarthy hill and I\u2019m going to tell the electoral people there that everybody whose name is on that register is an alien and illegal persons and I don\u2019t know them and I suspect they are all foreigners whose names are on the register. So I expect each one of them to be removed from the register and they should be told to come back and come and clarify.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Casely-Hayford argued that the C.1.91 creates a big loophole hence must be checked since it has the tendency of creating chaos in the country.<\/p>\n \u201cI will be a registered voter and I have a right. They are saying that according to C.I. 91, I should go and check and if anybody\u2019s name is on the register and I suspect to be an alien, I should report that person and they will go to the magistrate court to go and prove themselves. It\u2019s a big loophole because I will get 29,000 people and they should challenge every name on the poll,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n NDC\/NPP abusing challenge forms\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Casely-Hayford’s comment follows the revelation by some electoral observers during the recent limited voter registration exercise.<\/p>\n The observers lamented that the various political parties were abusing<\/strong><\/a><\/span> the challenge form, which is usually filled in protest of minors or foreigners seeking to be captured on the nations electoral register.<\/p>\n A Research Officer at the Collation of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO), Rhoda Afful had told Citi News that \u201cyou realize the parties are now more or less trying to outdo each other in terms of raising challenge accusations against registrants. This is something we are quite worried about; that some qualified people could be turned away because of this situation that we are having at the registration centers.\u201d<\/p>\n C.I. 91<\/strong><\/p>\n Parliament on March 17, 2016 approved the new Constitutional Instrument (CI) 91 that gives the Electoral Commission the authority to register voters for public elections with some modified guidelines.<\/p>\n The C.I. 91 which replaces the C.I. 72 among others states that prospective voters can use passport, a driver\u2019s licence, a national identification card or an existing voter identification card to qualify as a Ghanaian to be registered.<\/p>\n It also states that aside party officials including polling agents challenging the eligibility of voters, officers of the Electoral Commission (EC) will also have powers to do same.<\/p>\n A Deputy Commissioner\u00a0of the EC, Georgina Opoku Amankwaa had noted that all the\u00a0challenges will be through the filling of challenge forms and not by physical confrontation.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By: Godwin A. Allotey\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana
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