Voter registration: Ensure all eligible applicants are registered – CODEO to EC

The Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) has urged the Electoral Commission (EC) to be flexible in its schedule to accommodate eligible voters in hard-to-reach areas in the ongoing limited voter registration exercise.

Despite calls for an extension, the EC announced that the exercise will end on Monday, May 27.

In an interview with Citi News, a member of CODEO, Gildfred Asiamah Boateng, suggested that the EC could set up additional workstations in areas with large populations to ensure that all eligible voters get the opportunity to register.

“Even while we are having the registration take place at the district offices, the Commission can dispatch some of the people or some of the workstations that have ended their work to those [hard-to-reach] areas to ensure that they continue to register the people within the limited time that is left for the registration.

“At the same time, in some places, like the Saltpond area, they have been recording high numbers. and are you saying that on the last day, you are not going to allow [those] people to register because you have achieved a target, and it’s 21 days?

“What should those people do? That is where they belong, and it is not their fault that they belong there. So the Commission must adopt different strategies to ensure that in those areas where they are consistently recording high numbers, they increase the number of workstations to take care of their backlog so that everyone gets a fair chance to register.”

SOURCE:CITINEWSROOM.COM