Reject falsehoods regarding special voting – EC

The Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana has urged stakeholders to ignore falsehood being spewed regarding the special voting ahead of the elections this year.

The elections management body said in a statement on Monday, November 23 that its attention has been drawn to a video circulating on social media claiming that the EC has denied Security Agencies the opportunity to register and take part in the Early/Special Voting Exercise slated for Tuesday, 1st December, 2020.

“We wish to place on record that the contents of this video are false, baseless and unfounded and we call upon the General Public to disregard the said video,” the statement said.

The statement further explained that In July 2020, the Electoral Commission wrote to all Security and Media Agencies requesting them to submit the names of their officials who intend to vote under the Early/ Special Voting Window.

Following the receipt of the various lists, the Electoral Commission said it captured the details of Applicants on the Special Voters Register.

“It is important to note that a few persons submitted wrong ID card numbers. Unfortunately, those persons were not reflected on the Special Voters Register as their ID cards were invalid. Some of these Applicants submitted the ID numbers of the Old Voters ID card.

“Following the finalization of the Special Voters Register, the Electoral Commission held discussions with the Security and Media Agencies and provided them with soft copies of the Special Voters Register. The Commission presented evidence showing details of persons who were not included in the Special Voters Register as a result of invalid ID card numbers submitted to the Commission.

“The presentation showed the errors in the Voter ID cards submitted. In most cases, the digits of the Voter ID cards were less or more than ten (10) which is the legitimate number of digits for the Voter ID card,” ”he stated said.

It added “The Electoral Commission did make efforts to reach those who provided telephone numbers and corrected the wrong information sent. This category of persons was reflected in the Final Special Voters List. It is important to note that the Commission took great care to capture all eligible Applicants in the Special Voters Register. The Commission has no interest in preventing Applicants from utilizing the Special /Early Voting Facility.

“The author of the video also falsely claimed that Applicants who had applied for Special Voting, but whose names were not captured in the Special Voters Register due to the fact that their ID card numbers were invalid, would not be allowed to vote during the elections on 7th December 2020.

“For the first time in the history of the Electoral Commission, the Register of Special Voters, as well as the Locations for Special Voting, has been published on the website of the Commission.

“We call on the Security Agencies to investigate the falsehood being peddled on social media by the purported ‘‘Security Expert’’ and entreat the public to disregard this Video as the contents are completely FALSE. The Commission is ready to undertake the Special Voting Exercise on Tuesday, the 1st of December, 2020 and we entreat Applicants to visit our website to ascertain details of their voting locations.”