Special voting: Names missing in register in Tema Metropolis
Some security officials who reported at their designated polling stations for the special voting exercise in the Tema Metropolis on Tuesday morning became frustrated when their names could not be found in the voters’ register being used for the exercise.
When the Ghana News Agency visited the Tema Community One Police Station which is the polling station for security officials and staff of the Electoral Commission who registered in Tema East constituency, more than five people approached the Returning Officer, Mr Eric Opei-Kumi, complaining that their names were missing from the register.
Two of the officials who registered in the Tema Central constituency and therefore were eligible to cast their votes at the Tema Community Eight Police Station, were referred by EC officials there to check from the Tema East polling centre as their names were missing.
Mr Eric Opei-Kumi, asked the affected persons to write their names and voter ID number in a book provided.
He stated that the problem would be assessed to enable the affected persons to vote on December 7, the day for the general election.
He further stated that the Tema District Office of the EC would talk to the security authorities to repost the affected persons to the constituency they had registered to enable them to vote.
On the ongoing exercise, Mr Opei-Kumi indicated that the voting started at 0704 hours and a total of 102 persons had cast their votes as at 0900 hours.
He added that the centre had a total of 570 registered security officials on its register.
Mr Opei-Kumi said even though they informed the political party representatives of the number of registered voters, they insisted that they would want to count it one by one as that was the instructions from their political parties.
He noted however that there was no need for that as the number in both the main register and name list tallied.
The returning officer called on the political parties to desist from putting such impediments to hinder the smooth running of the general election on Friday.
There were about 100 security officials mainly from the Navy, Police, Customs and Fire Service patiently in a queue waiting for their turn to vote at the centre at the time the GNA visited.
Mr Kempes Ofosuware and Mr Richster Nii Armarh Armarfio, parliamentary candidates for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and Convention People’s Party (CPP) respectively who are vying for the Tema East Constituency seat, were also spotted at the polling centre.
Source: GNA