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STORY BY: KEKELI BLAMEY/VR
The National Democratic Congress (NDC), Volta Region, has held a press conference to address issues relating to the ongoing voter exhibition exercise across the region.
Speaking at the conference, the Regional Party Chairman Mr. Henry Ametepe, stated that the Electoral Commission (EC) has demonstrated enough symptoms of unpreparedness towards the exhibition exercise, and the NDC as a political party will not sit aloof.
Mr. Henry Ametepe explains that the party will not entertain the electoral commission to introduce lots of distortion into the electoral roll but rather make sure due process is followed to enable peaceful administration of electoral duties in the country.
They however outlined some inaction on the part of the EC, arguing that, there have been no biometric verification devices at any of the polling stations in the Volta region.
Mr. Ametepe opined that the 2019 provisional registers are largely combined with the 2016 final registers, thus making it difficult for newly registered people to find their names in the registers.
The party again alleges that observations made by their team revealed that almost of all the newly registered voters have been assigned the status of “FO” which indicates that people’s biometric details have not been captured during the time of registration except their pictures this they said will bring a lot of chaos on the Election Day since voters will only be verified by face.
“Pictures on the voters register exhibited are so dark and this makes it difficult to duly identify the people on it” they mentioned
The party also said that from their observation, there is a deliberate attempt by the EC to disenfranchise many voters especially in the NDC strongholds adding that the whole data system has been jumbled for instance assigning new voter ID to some voters instead of their original ones on their cards.
They again added that new District Codes and Polling Station Codes are assigned to replace the original ones and also migrating voters from their main Polling Stations to new stations outside their original Districts
.
The party however charge the Electoral Commission to correct the anomalies in the else NDC as a party will come up with their next action.
They further called on all citizens to copiously check the electoral commission in order to make them put things at their right places for a transparent, well organized and a very democratic electoral process.