EC dismisses claims of printing new voter’s ID cards

The Electoral Commission has slammed claims of its officials indulging in the printing of Voter ID Cards.

In a release sighted by Vaultz News, the EC urged the public to disregard circulating videos as they are misleading and not an act from the Commission.

“The attention of the Electoral Commission has been drawn to a video circulating on social media purporting to be officials of the Commission printing Voter ID cards.

“The said video is accompanied by a caption which erroneously creates the impression that staff of the Commission are printing Voter ID cards after the expiration of the Registration Exercise.

“We entreat the public to disregard this video as it is false”.

The statement further revealed that during the just ended Registration Exercise, few Centres experienced the production of duplicate ID cards which resulted from registration kits bearing the same codes.

According to the EC, “this led to the printing of Voter ID cards with the similar numbers for different persons”.

“The Commission is therefore replacing the duplicate cards for the affected persons. As such, the cards in the video belong to those persons with duplicate Voter ID numbers. They were authorized by the Commission, printed at the Headquarters and subsequently sent to the District Offices for lamination and distribution.”

Similarly, the Commission confirmed that, several District Offices have Voter ID cards which are being distributed to the affected persons and has attached the full list of the affected Districts for the information of the General Public.

It further entreated political parties to visit the affected District Offices to monitor the distribution of the duplicate cards to the affected persons.

Meanwhile, the Ranking Member on Parliament’s Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, Inusah Fuseini, has queried the readiness of the Electoral Commission (EC) ahead of the 2020 election due to missing names on its electoral roll.

Speaking in an interview, the Tamale Central MP quipped the EC must provide clarity on the situation in a bid not to disenfranchise people.

“You can’t by any stretch of imagination claim 21,000 voters’ names being missing on the register at Ashaiman is diminutive. You can’t say that 1,800 people not having their name on the register when they registered for elections in South Dayi is diminutive.

“But when the removal and the absence of the name on the register are so glaring that it cannot be any stretch of imagination be said to be errors committed by persons or officers of the EC inadvertently then you have to question the Commission and its readiness conduct a free, fair and credible election. I think that this could be deliberate and it’s left with the EC to disapprove that view.”

Earlier, Ashaiman MP, Ernest Henry Norgbey had responded to a statement by the Electoral Commission which countered his claims that there was a deliberate omission of his name together with 21,000 other from the voter’s register.

According to him, the EC in its communication sought to discredit his person and downplay the severity of the error which could disenfranchise the individuals.

 “In the morning of Friday, September 18, I went to the Celestial SHS 1 voter exhibition center of Center code C260703 to verify my name. My name was not found on the register which occasioned the verification officer to fill out my details on the EC’s own voter inclusion form… I was alarmed by this so I quickly deployed my research officers to conduct an audit of all the registers exhibited at all the exhibition centres across the constituency.”