The Deputy Chair of the Electoral Commission in charge of operations, Samuel Tettey, has admonished Ghanaians to disregard allegations made by civil society group Election Watch Ghana, accusing the EC of using the stolen biometric voter registration kit to register people secretly.
He described these allegations as baseless, unfounded, and of no merit.
According to him, the Commission reported five missing laptops to security agencies but not stolen BVR kits. This, he argues, is a deceptive attempt by certain groups.
“The Commission reported to the security agencies that five laptops were missing; the commission informed all stakeholders about the missing laptops; describing the missing laptops as BVRs is a deliberate attempt by certain groups to deceive the public in order to sustain their unfounded ambition,” he said.
He furthered that a “biometric voter registration kit comprises several essential components: a laptop, a finger print scan, a digital camera, a printer, and a battery bank. a portable carrying case and a backup storage device; these components must be activated all together for the kits to be used to register voters.”
“We repeat that the five missing laptops on their own cannot be used to register voters,” the Deputy EC chair emphasised.
Mr. Tettey disclosed this on Tuesday, the 21st day of May 2024, at the EC headquarters when the institution engaged the media.
He noted that the EC has also given the opportunity to all the various stakeholders as far as elections are concerned to visit all the registration centres across the country to observe proceedings on the just-ended limited voter registration exercise, adding that they should have the same records on the number of entrants the EC is making for the day.
“Political parties receive both start-of-day and end-of-day reports, which the party agents cross-check against their individual records to ensure that at the end of each day, the total number of registered voters published by the EC is not different from what the political parties collate at all the registration centres.”
Mr. Tettey disclosed that the Commission has acknowledged errors made in the infographics on the number of challenged cases and corrected the same.
He described the registration exercise as successful, with a total of 7,821 challenges raised across the country.
Accordingly, Mr. Tettey asserted that it would not be “feasible” to extend the exercise because the challenges it encountered were only for the first two days.
The limited registration exercise, which started on May 7th, 2024, is expected to end on May 27th, 2024.
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