Voters angry with EC

There is uneasy calm at some exhibition centres in the Eastern Region as some aggrieved voters have accused the Electoral Commission (EC) of wrongly deleting their names from the voter register, although they claim they did not register with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) card.

A number of registrants have since Monday stormed various centres in the region to check their biometric details in the ongoing voter registration exhibition exercise, but some of them said their names had been deleted.

DAILY GUIDE checks showed that districts where the voters had their names removed are Fanteakwa, Asamankese, Oda, Ofoase/Ayirebi, Asuoagyaman, Suhum, Nkawkaw, Mpraeso, Abetifi, Kyebi, Nsawam and Akropong.

Some of the people had their names and ID numbers changed in the EC register as compared to the ones on the voter ID cards.

At the Asirebuso Electoral Area in the Fanteakwa North Constituency, some of the voters noted that the EC’s list that was provided, claiming they registered with the NHIS card as proof of citizenship during the 2012 registration exercise, was full of errors.

According to a victim, Effah Kwakye Ernest, he never registered his name with the NHIS card during the 2012 biometric registration exercise. He said he was an old-time eligible voter and so he used the old voter ID card to register prior to the 2012 elections.

He said even the NHIS number the Electoral Commission is claiming he used for the registration is incorrect because it differs from his real NHIS number. The NHIS number the EC brought is 39481492 whiles his original NHIS number is 14087746.

According to him, the same thing happened to his wife, Naomi Effah Ofosua – whose name had also been removed from the register. Her NHIS card number the EC gave was 39481493 whereas the original number is 14087341.

“I was even a registration officer during the 2012 registration exercise and I never used the National Health Insurance card to register my name,” Mr. Effah said.

Not only the couple; most of the voters in the district, especially in the Asirebuso Electoral Area, had been complaining of the same anomaly.

DAILY GUIDE gathered that 246 names were removed from the electoral roll by the EC, claiming that they registered with the NHIS card.

This paper learnt that 29 names were removed from the voter register at the Koradaso polling station; six at the D/A Primary School Nyardier; 36 at D/A Primary School, Addokrom; 51 at Asirebuso; one at Ahomamu; six at Feyiase; one at Akromso; 81 at the Local Council office; 31 at Presby Primary A and four at Meyewa Kwahu Adokrom.

Checks revealed that at the Afram Plains South Constituency, which has 98 polling stations, there had been low turnout regarding the ongoing voter register exhibition.

This, according to the residents, is because the EC failed to bring the materials for the exercise on Monday when the exercise began.