Kassena Nankana residents may not vote – EC
The Electoral Commission (EC) has revealed it cannot fully guarantee that the over 3,000 residents in the Kassena Nankani District in the Upper East Region will vote on Friday.
The Kassena Nankana district became a hotbed of boycotts during the voter biometric registration exercise some months ago following the change of names in the electoral area.
A Fast Track High court later directed the Electoral Commission to undertake registration of voters in those areas between December 2 and December 5.
According to the EC, though the registration is currently ongoing, processing the names of the electorate into a voters register will take a number of days therefore they may vote.
In an interview with Citi News, the Acting Public Affairs Director at the Commission, Christian Owusu Parry explained that “the field capture of data is only one step in the making of a register. The making of the register goes through certain processes; after the field capture of data, there is work to be done about the data that has been collected.”
He continued: “If you will recall, when we did the main registration exercise, we also did finger print matching after the collection of the data. And for this group of people, we will also take their biometrics through the fingerprint identification so we will match their fingerprints not just against themselves but against the rest of us that are in the database.”
Mr. Owusu Parry added that the procedure will take a couple of days “and so I am unable to say that we will be able to produce a register for them immediately.”
He however mentioned that that if the Commission was able to go through all the processes, they may be able to vote though “I don’t see how realistic that may be. If we don’t have a register for them, there is a court order that says we should register them so we will register them but as to whether we can generate a register before Friday is another matter.”
In a related development, Citi News’ Upper East Regional correspondent, Agana Bawa reported that some of the residents in the area are skeptical about their chances to vote in Friday’s elections due to their late registration.
“They seem not to be certain as to whether they will be able to vote as the registration exercise will end on Wednesday and how they are going to process whatever data they are picking here for them to vote on December 7. That is what they are contemplating on.”
According to him, “there is a mixed feeling here because some of them are also happy they have the opportunity to register ahead of December 7.”
Source:citifmonline/ghana
