The Vice-Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), in the Volta Region, George Loh, has been trolled on social media for participating in the electoral commission’s piloting of the new voters’ register when his demo card went viral on social media.
In response to the trolling he told the Samuel Eshun host of the ‘Happy Morning Show’ (HMS) on Happy 98.9 FM that, “It was good we participated in yesterday’s piloting exercise because it confirmed our earlier assertions that the EC will disenfranchise majority of Ghanaians in the compilation of a new register” he said.
He enumerated a couple of reasons why he came to the conclusion that sections of Ghanaians will be disenfranchised.
“It took me twenty (20) minutes to get my dammie card. The vouching process is cumbersome. I deliberately told them I didn’t have any of the required identification cards, so the EC officer suggested I get two registered people to vouch for me. I got the two (2) people, from ther piloting centre i knew one of the two persons who vouched for me. They interview the vouchers to ascertain how they know you, and that in itself is time consuming.
There was no facial recognition as touted by the EC. I also asked them if the machines were new but no one was willing to answer that. It started raining and they had to run for shelter, imagine if it was at a place where there was no shelter. The machines they were using went off and the exercise was halted for four (4) hours” he stated.
Explaining why the NDC participated in the piloting exercise, George Loh said:
“The NDC never said we won’t participate in the 2020 general elections, the NDC is against the compilation of a new register. So because of cost implications and time constraints it is the NDC’s position that, the EC does a limited registration exercise.
And most importantly, if the EC decides to do a limited registration it will still use the new machines. So there is no problem for us taking part in the pilot, it doesn’t change our earlier stance that the compilation of a new register is needless”
By: Bridget Mensah