Adam Bona, a security analyst, has disclosed that, there has been some glaring omissions of names of security personnel from the special list of voters.
According to him, this disenfranchises some departments and security personnel who cannot find their names in the register.
Providing further information received from various security agencies, he stressed that, the omitted names will be problematic as senior officers are equally included.
“I gathered information from most of these security agencies after interacting with them to understand the severity of the situation. It will surprise you that some institutions have 99% of some departments who are not finding their names in the special voting register. Essentially these people are getting disenfranchised so you ask yourself, what went wrong? This is going to be problematic because there seems to be tension among the personnel because it is not just the rank and file but senior officers cannot also find their names”.
The Electoral Commission (EC) he noted, had directed the various security agencies to resubmit the list of names via an online platform but alleges that the electoral management body is yet to rectify the anomaly.
The Electoral Commission (EC) addressing the issue, challenged claims of the names of more than 60 percent of security officers projected to partake in the special voting exercise are omitted from their register.
Explaining from the EC perspective, the Director of Electoral Services, Dr. Serebour Quarcoo, contested that no such information has come to the EC’s attention and as such he doesn’t “think it is true”.
“I don’t know where he got his figures. We have 109,552 people on the special voters’ list and this list includes the media and the security services so how many security services people do we have there?”
He indicated that the Commission has already gathered the list of special voters and it is very unlikely that such omissions or additions will occur.
He noted that, “by law, you cannot add to the list 42 days to an election, so we can’t do anything”.
With general elections some weeks away, the Electoral Commission (EC) has already slated Special Voting for the 2020 general elections for Tuesday, December 1, 2020.
It announced the development in a press release dated October 2, 2020.
A reserve for voters who will be unable to vote at polling stations where they have been registered due to their duties on Election Day, have been categorized under the ‘special voter list’.
The special voting caters for security personnel, media personnel and election officials.
Results of the Special Voting will however not be made public until after the General Elections.
