Coronavirus: EC puts upcoming voter registration exercise on hold
The Electoral Commission (EC) has postponed its compilation of a new voter register as a result of the outbreak of the novel Coronavirus pandemic.
This was made known to journalists by Dr. Serebour Quaicoe, Director of Electoral Services after an Inter-Party Advisory Committee meeting, Wednesday, that the outfit is collaborating with health experts to decide on a more favourable date.
“We had planned to do the registration on the 18th but because of the pandemic, we can’t do it on the 18th, so, we are observing what is happening around Ghana and the global issue…so, when it gets to a time that we think the situation is fertile for us to commence with the registration then we can do it,” Mr. Quaicoe explained.
The EC has earlier plan to begin the compilation of a new voter register for the 2020 elections on April 18, this year. The commission had also expressed hope it will complete the exercise by May 30, 2020.
The exercise which has been assigned a budget of GHS390 million faced opposition from some political parties and civil society organisations.
The Inter-Party Resistance Against the New Voters Register, a coalition of six political parties, kicked against the plan, citing cost, time and credibility as the basis for its opposition.
Regardless, Dr. Serebour Quaicoe justified the plan.
He said: “We have made it very clear that the current biometric system is not good enough for future activities. We are having a lot of challenges with it. In addition to that, a lot of people have found it difficult to have their fingerprints picked up by the machine so we intend to introduce the facial recognition [option] in addition so that if your fingerprint fails, your image will be used for verification.”
