We’re not out to cheat any party – EC

The Electoral Commission of Ghana has said it has retrieved almost all the voter names that went missing on the newly-compiled voter roll.

Director of Electoral Services at the EC, Dr Serebour Quaicoe, told Samson Lardi Anynini on Accra-based Joy FM’s Newsfile programme on Saturday, 26 September 2020 that the ongoing exhibition exercise is part of the electoral roll compilation meant to allow the election management body to correct any detected errors or anomalies.

“That’s why we call this one provisional register. A provisional register in the sense that it’s not final,” he said.

“There are a lot of things that you have to go through, including the exhibition exercise, including all the challenges that have been identified and being addressed,” Dr Quaicoe explained.

“It will interest you to know that, as of yesterday, [Friday, 25 September 2020], when I was leaving the office, we have been able to retrieve all the missing names and we are now left with around 17,000,” he revealed.

“So, if you compare that with 2012, you’ll see that we’re getting closer and we’re still doing the end of life and the rest.

“So, you’d realise that if nothing at all, it’s only the 17,000 that will apply for inclusion. So, we have moved ahead, correcting all the errors,” he stressed.

He, therefore, urged the parties not to be quick to allege ill motives should they detect any errors or anomalies in the exhibition process.

“… I want to say that it is good for anybody to be criticising you and raising the issues but my concern is imputing ill-motives.

“Because it’s good that somebody is watching so that even step that you’re taking, you say: ‘I have to be very careful; this and that and that’,” he said.

Dr Quaicoe noted that once human beings are infallible, such errors were likely to occur but they will be corrected when detected.

“The machines are operated by human beings, human beings will make the mistakes, the machine will generate it and we’ll do the corrections.

“So, they should understand that anything that has happened at the registration will be rectified during the exhibition and after the exhibition, so, by the time they’ll get the final register, all these challenges that they are talking about, will not be issues.

“So, they should relax and have confidence that the Electoral Commission has no interest in cheating anybody. The Electoral Commission which has been conducting elections since 1992 to date [is not interested in cheating anybody].

“We have not completed the register, so, wait for us to diagnose. The exhibition is part of the compilation of the register.

“The post-exhibition errors and everything is part of the compilation of the register.

“So, it is only when we have come out to say this is the final register that you can now say that the register is not credible or [it is].

“In the first place, when you talk about a credible register, what does it mean? A credible register means that the register should be accurate,” he said.