We Won't Allow ‘Illegal Deletion’ Of Names From Voter Register - Otokunor

A Deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress, Peter Boamah Otokunor, says his party is concerned that the Electoral Commission EC may arbitrarily remove names from the new voters’ register

during adjudication and deduplication processes. “We will not allow any premature or illegal deletion of names people who have gone through stress to get their names on the register,” he said. Some 16.9 million

persons have registered to vote but the Commission expects this figure to drop after the adjudication and deduplication processes. The Commission also said there are about 800,000 persons on a quarantine list.

Over 35,000 applicants were challenged during the registration exercise. Mr. Otokunor said his party was expecting 17 million persons to be registered and held that the current register is “reflective of the people who

qualify to register.” NDC was against the new voter registration being held and instead advocated for a limited registration exercise. “But for the suppression; the deliberate, conscious, vicious suppression and

intimidation by the government, a lot more people would have been registered than the 16.9 million we have on the register,” he added. Mr. Otokunor also rubbished the Commission’s suggestions that there are minors and foreigners on the new register that require

cleansing. “They have no business telling us their suspicions. They must come to the people with facts. We have given them work. They've the documentation.” “If you have no basis, you don’t need to tell us that you suspect foreigners. You don’t work with suspicions, especially when you have the data. Until you have the facts, you can’t tell us what you are thinking,” Mr. Otokunor said.