Election 2020: Is the EC clandestinely Cooking New Voters Register?

Two memos reportedly issued by the Electoral Commission (EC) on April 16 and 17, 2020, shows that the election regulator may be secretly planning a move on a new voters register, despite its latest announcement that the social distancing restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 coronavirus may compel it to use the old register.

In the April 17^th memo, the Director of Training of the EC reportedly wrote to all Regional Directors and Deputy Regional Directors for training for a voter registration exercise.

“There will be national planning meeting and key trainers training workshop at the City Escape Hotel, Prampram, in the Greater Accra Region on the 24^th to 29^th April 2020, to prepare and plan for the forthcoming registration of voters exercise…,” the memo read.

“Due to the States directive on social gathering the meeting will be conducted in three batches of twenty-five participants per batch and each batch will have two meetings,” the EC wrote in what has quickly been tagged as insensitive and fishy.

The suspicious development, the second memo issued on April 16, 2020, requested security agencies to allow staff of INNOLINK Limited to go to work to “Complete some task”.

Innolink, which is the company contracted by the EC to print ballot papers, be allowed to go to work at their North Industrial Area office so that they can work through the lockdown.

It is believed that what Innolink has been put up to do is print ballot papers. This is because, this company, has been a longstanding client of the EC and in 2016, was accused of by the NPP of sneaking out of a plate used in printing ballot papers for the 2016 presidential poll from the company’s production house.

These memos, however, contradict the announcement by the Director of General Electoral Services at EC, Dr. Serebour Quaicoe, who said the uncertainty of the Covid-19 may force the EC to use the current voters’ register.

“We are taking all the precautions we have to take, so if in two months it (coronavirus) fails (to subside) we may need to use the register but if you don’t go for validation it means your name could be deleted,” Dr. Quaicoe told Joy FM on Saturday.

“…and if we are talking of the validation, it means people will still have to come in and that would mean human contact will still be there.”

Critics have suspected foul play in the EC’s insistence on compiling a new register despite little evidence presented to show the current register is not credible for the December 2020 general elections.

The EC had earlier scheduled April 18 to commence compilation of a new register, but the ravaging Covid-19 has forced the government to place restrictions on mass gatherings, which impacts the EC’s ability to mobilise voters for a potential registration exercise.

Since the imposition of restrictions on Mass gatherings about three weeks ago, Ghana’s Covid-19 cases have quadrupled, making it difficult to predict when the infection rate will subside.

Many, especially those in the opposition parties have surmised that Jean Mensah’s intransigent decision to compile the new register is fueled by an agenda to prepare the grounds for the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) to rig the 2020 election.

There are others, however, who think such an assessment is farfetched; even so, the Commissioner’s intransigence keeps gravitating many towards the belief that she indeed has an ulterior agenda.

Source: Whatsapp News Ghana