Provisional voter register: Political parties will receive register before exhibition starts – EC

The Electoral Commission (EC) has denied claims that it is acting unlawfully by not releasing the provisional timetable for the voter exhibition exercise to political parties earlier.

According to the EC, the law mandates that they compile the register within 30 days after ending the mop-up registration, a timeline it has not crossed yet.

“The law says that once we finish [the mop-up], we have about 30 days to compile so we are within the law. I would not rush and say, ‘give the figures to them’ [because] when there are errors, they [NDC] will come back and ask questions,” Director of Training at the EC, Dr. Serebour Quaicoe, told TV3 on Friday, August 9, 2024.

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has accused the Commission of unfair treatment, with only six days left for the exhibition to begin.

The party argues that “this lack of promptness exhibited by the EC is due to both incompetence and a deliberate attempt to dump a sub-standard provisional voter register on political parties in a short period.”

“The EC wrote to the NDC on July 18, 2024, requesting that we bring an external drive (2 terabytes) for the PVR to be loaded for us. We responded to their request by submitting the external drive with an additional request for all 16 regional register code books.”

“Unfortunately, for well over two weeks, the EC refused to honour their obligation per CI 91 as amended by CI 126. This is grossly unfair,” the NDC’s Director of Elections, Dr. Omane Boamah, wrote in a statement on Wednesday, August 14, 2024.

But the Electoral Commission has assured that the parties will get the register before the exhibition.

Dr Quaicoe said the provisional voter register “will be given to the parties before the exhibition.”

He contends that there is no need to rush the process to ensure accuracy in the data that will be provided.

“We cannot sidestep any of the processes,” he maintained