Lifeline for special voters as EC, IPAC, police agree ground rules for ’morrow
The Electoral Commission (EC) has offered a lifeline to special voters who missed out on the special voting last Thursday because their names were not on the electoral roll.
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Some security personnel, journalists and officials of the EC left the polling centres for the special voting last Thursday disappointed because their particulars were not available on the special list for the early voting process.
The decision to extend the special voting exercise to tomorrow was taken by the EC after it had held consultations with the Police Administration and met with representatives of political parties and other stakeholders at an Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting last Thursday night.
A release signed by the Head of Communications of the EC, Mr Eric K. Dzakpasu, said: “After the meeting, it was agreed that in view of the challenges encountered during the special voting on December 1, 2016, the special voting should be continued on Sunday, December 4, 2016.”
“All voters whose names were included on the special voters list were legally included on the Absentee Voters List at their original polling stations. Therefore, their barcodes will be deactivated and they will be unable to vote on December 7, 2016,” it added.
It said it was established that in numerous cases, the persons affected were those who could not take advantage of the earlier transfer window to transfer their votes to the constituencies where they wished to vote.
That was the reason such persons were assigned by the commission to constituencies where they had registered to vote and not where they would be assigned to work on election day or where they were currently deployed, it said
Special voting
The special voting exercise was conducted at 284 centres last Thursday to give opportunity to security personnel, journalists and officials of the EC to exercise their franchise ahead of the December 7 general election.
A total of 127, 394 people were expected to cast their votes.
From selected polling centres in the Greater Accra Region through to Ashanti to Upper East, the exercise encountered some challenges.
Some voters who encountered a few challenges, including issues with verification and wrong typing of ID numbers, insisted on voting, although their names were not in the special voters register.
But they were not allowed to do so by presiding officers and party agents.
In some instances, a number of prospective special early voters had their details and names appearing at polling stations and constituencies they were not aware of.
A special voter casting her ballot while others wait for their turn
Persons to vote
Explaining the circumstances that led to some of the challenges, the EC said some security agencies did not submit any list of officers at all to take part in the special voting and, therefore, there was no way such officers could vote in the special voting.
It said persons who transferred their votes and whose names appeared on the special voters list but who could not vote on December 1, 2016 should be allowed to vote on Sunday, December 4, 2016.
The statement also said persons who did not transfer their votes but whose names appeared on the special voters list could only vote in the constituencies where they were registered, adding that it was important to note that the opportunity to participate in the special voting was not an opportunity to transfer one's vote.
Explaining further, it said the voters, whose names were included in either the earlier list or the updated one provided the political parties, should be allowed to vote.
It said the number of special voters on both lists were the same, except that the EC updated the earlier list by properly designating the constituencies to ensure that special voters voted only in constituencies where they were registered, in line with the law.
Safeguarding the integrity of the ballot
The release said the EC would provide all political parties with a list of voters who voted on December 1, 2016 to enable them to track those who were eligible to vote on December 4, 2016.
It said persons whose names were not on the special voters list would not be allowed to take part in the special voting and, therefore, urged the hierarchy of the security agencies to deploy such affected persons to work on election day in areas close to the polling stations where they were registered for them to vote on December 7, 2016.
Such persons, it said, would be given priority at the polling centres to vote early.
“In order to guarantee the integrity of the ballots already cast on December 1, 2016, the commission will grant the agents of the political parties and the respective returning officers access to the biometric verification devices in the Police Armoury today, December 2, 2016 to reconfirm the number of persons who actually voted on December 1, 2016 before the device counter automatically reset itself to zero on Saturday, December 3, 2016,” the release said.
It said the EC would provide new ballot boxes for the special voting tomorrow and political parties would provide their seals for the additional ballot boxes.
It added that political party representatives would be allowed access to inspect the ballot boxes in the Police Armoury between December 2 and December 7, 2016 when the ballots of the special voting exercise were counted and declared.