1.3 million first-time voters likely to impact 2020 polls – Ephson

Pollster Ben Ephson has said the 1.3 million people captured by the Electoral Commission as first-time voters in the just-ended voter registration exercise, could have an impact on the 7 December polls.

Speaking on the Executive Breakfast Show (EBS) on Class91.3FM on Thursday, August 13, 2020, Mr Ephson described the register as very clean.

He told show host Benjamin Akakpo that: “I think that this is a very clean register”.

“I think that if we had used the 2016, we would have been hitting 19 million or 19.5 million, which will be a bit high for our estimated population of 31 million”, adding: “There have been some huge increases which will have an impact on the 2020 elections”.

“Greater Accra has increased by over 445,000, Central by 222,000, the three northern regions collectively 203,000.”

Mr Ephson further noted that whichever political party will use common sense to capture the first-time voters, will shore up its chances in the December 7 polls.

“The first-time voters make up 1.3 million. That is a huge number and the political party which uses common sense will make the most of what is likely to be a virtual campaign toward December”, he said.

He explained: “I’m referring to, if you decide that you’re going to neglect 18-, 19-year-olds, who would think for themselves and vote on their own unlike 15 years ago, if you’re 18 or 19, your parents will tell you: ‘Vote for A, vote for B’, you’re not going to target them, you’ll be losing out because this 19-, 18-year-olds, they’re on the social space, and they’ll take decisions for themselves”.

“You’ll get the majority of these first-timers voting for the NPP because they may have gone through free education. [On] the reverse [side] of the coin, you‘ll have people voting against them because we’ve not gotten jobs, their parents have lost their businesses. So, that 1.3 million could have an impact,” Mr Ephson stated.