Extension of voter exhibition good but...

The nationwide voter exhibition exercise scheduled to end today has been extended to Friday, September 20, 2019.

Since the exercise started last week, there have been reports of some challenges at the various exhibition centres and the move by the

Electoral Commission (EC) to extend the period for the exhibition, therefore, cannot be more timely.

Reporters of the Daily Graphic across the country have given accounts of the slow patronage of the exercise since it started, citing the fact that the public were largely not aware that such an exercise was ongoing, something other stakeholders have mentioned as the cause of the low patronage.

Another challenge that was identified was the delay in getting materials, including the voters registers for 2016 and 2019, delivered to some centres.

The situation led to some centres having to delay, or in some cases, postponing the exercise until such a time that they took delivery of the materials.

It is the hope, therefore, of the Daily Graphic that the postponement will allow many more voters to visit the centres to check on their details and to achieve the purpose of arriving at a clean and credible register. But it is instructive to point out that some lessons must be learnt, going forward, and particularly into the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections.

One argument that some officials of the EC have raised is that with such minor exercises, it is usually normal for members of the public not to show much interest because they believe they have their cards already with their details intact and, therefore, will not waste time to check their details.

While such an argument may hold, we think it is not for nothing that the requirement exists in the books for such an exercise to be undertaken.

This is necessarily so in view of what has been recorded in past elections in our Fourth Republican democratic dispensation.

One other reason that has been adduced for the late delivery of materials to some areas and which occasioned a delay in the start of the exercise is that the creation of the new regions from existing ones, as well as the creation of new districts, led to a challenge in the coding of electoral and polling stations.

The EC explained that materials meant for some polling stations in the newly created areas ended up in the old regions and that led to the delay in their delivery.

Nevertheless, we contend that adequate preparations and foresightedness in planning for such an exercise, as well as rolling out the remaining electoral programme of the EC in a timeous manner, are the way to go.

As the country heads to a major election next year, the actions and inaction of the EC from now till then will determine the people’s perception and stakeholders’ acceptance of the state of readiness of the EC for that key exercise.

That is the reason we at the Daily Graphic will continue to demand high standards of performance from the election management body as we approach Election 2020.

The EC must do everything possible not to create an avenue for any entity to hold an otherwise strong electoral system to ransom.

We thus encourage it to continue with its stakeholder engagements in order to ensure that public confidence in its ability to handle the various processes leading not only to the referendum and the district level elections but also the 2020 general poll does not wane.