The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has rejected the Electoral Commission’s (EC) proposal to resort to offline registration of voters if the current online mode of registration continues to face challenges.
Rather, it urged the Commission to immediately fix and restore data connectivity to all registration centres to maintain continuous registration, ensure prompt data verification and enhance transparency of the process.
The registration exercise, which commenced on May 7, 2024 and is expected to end on May 27, was marred by numerous challenges on the opening day including poor internet connectivity and malfunctioning biometric machines.
As a result, the Commission directed its officers to switch to offline registration should the challenges persist.
Addressing a news conference, in Accra, on Thursday, Mr Fifi Kwetey, General Secretary of the NDC, kicked against the use of offline mode of registration, saying it was deficient.
He explained that the offline registration could not only undermine the integrity of the electoral process but also expose the system for exploitation, including data manipulation and the introduction of errors that could skew the process outcome.
“This approach lacks real-time oversight, making it difficult to verify data promptly and transparently, thereby opening the door to potential prejudices and manipulations—particularly in targeted districts and regions to the disadvantage of the NDC.
“These actions compromise transparency and trust,” Mr Kwetey indicated.
He noted that while the Party recognised and appreciated that technical challenges were an unavoidable aspect of any large-scale logistical operation, registering voters offline was not the ideal solution.
He demanded that the EC immediately rectify the systemic flaws to ensure efficiency and trustworthiness of the electoral processes.
“We demand that the EC be proactive in implementing robust preventive measures rather than resorting to offline registration,” the General Secretary stressed.
Mr Kwetey also expressed concern about figures churned out by the Commission in the ongoing voter registration exercise, which were incorrect.
For instance, he noted that the Party on May 11, 2024, alerted the Commission to some figures it had put out on its website and social media handles which contained anomalies.
Despite the EC acknowledging the issue on May 12 and effecting corrections, Mr Kwetey said the “corrected” figures still contained errors.
In the Oti Region, for instance, Mr Kwetey claimed that the Day Two figure of 578 was “erroneously” swapped with Day Three figure of 1,515, adding that if these figures were realigned correctly, Day Two national total would amount to 18,330, and not 19,267, while Day Three’s total would be 49,553, not 48,616, as stated by the Commission.
“Similarly, Day Three figure for Bono East in their corrected data is 771. But this is wrong. Bono East recorded 2,252 per our provisional data. This figure will affect the total registered voters of 5,118 for Bono East for the four days as stated by the EC,” he added.
“This situation exemplifies what we term “transpositional rigging,” where figures are shuffled between categories without affecting the overall total,” he said.
He urged the EC to promptly rectify the inaccuracies in the data released on May 12, 2024, adding that such discrepancies had the potential to raise suspensions among parties.
“We expect a thorough review and correction of all figures to forestall further errors, upholding the integrity of our electoral process,” he stressed.
He added that the NDC remained vigilant and committed to safeguarding all votes, promising Ghanaians that it would ensure that every ballot cast on December 7 was accounted.
Mr Kwetey reiterated calls for an independent probe into the missing biometric verification kits to erase any form of mistrust among stakeholders.
GNA
GRB
17 May 2024
