EC gives lifeline to ‘NHIS voters’ to re-register
The Electoral Commission (EC) has offered a second window of opportunity to more than 30,000 voters whose names were deleted from the electoral roll for using National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) cards but who failed to re-register during the just-ended re-registration exercise.
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The commission has fixed August 5 to 12, 2016 for the NHIS card registrants to get back onto the voters register ahead of the December polls.
After an Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting in Accra yesterday, the EC disclosed: “We are giving the deleted NHIS registrants a second opportunity from 5th to 12th August, 2016 to re-register. So if you were unable to do so earlier, you have a second opportunity to get yourself back onto the voters register.”
EC heeds to appeal
The EC had earlier explained that there was no indication that an extension would ensure that more people would re-register.
The Head of Communications at the EC, Mr Eric Dzakpasu, had told journalists last Friday that “there is no evidence that when an extension is granted, the remaining people will come out of their houses or communities to get re-registered”.
But after pleas by some political parties, governance institutions and the public, including the Member of Parliament for Effutu in the Central Region, Mr Alex Afenyo-Markin, for the commission to extend the re-registration of NHIS card registrants, the EC agreed.
The extension is also to satisfy the Supreme Court ruling directing the EC to give opportunity to the deleted NHIS card registrants to re-register
The EC gave the opportunity to NHIS card registrants to re-register from July 18 to 28.
According to the commission, it had, by Wednesday, July 27, 2016, re-registered 22,107 out of the 56,772 whose names were deleted from the voters register.
PPP and NPP
Mr Nii Allotey Brew-Hammond, the National Chairman of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), and Mr Peter Mac Manu, the Campaign Manager of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), confirmed to the Daily Graphic after the IPAC meeting that the EC had informed the meeting that the exercise would be re-opened beginning from August 5 to August 12 to give a window of opportunity to those who could not register to do so, as well as satisfy the ruling of the Supreme Court.
Continuous registration
Mr Brew-Hammond said the meeting also affirmed the modalities for continuous registration as was earlier agreed on at an IPAC meeting that every Friday should be set aside for continuous registration.
He said because of the exhibition of the voters register currently underway, the exercise was cut off, but at the meeting yesterday, August 19 and August 26 was set aside for the continuous registration exercise.
He said the continuous registration exercise was meant for citizens who had attained the age of 18 and those who had never registered to have their names on the voters register.
Mr Brew-Hammond said the exercise would be suspended after August 19 and August 26 to give the EC the opportunity to have more time to prepare and compile the final register for distribution to political parties for the 2016 elections.
Court ruling
The names of 56,772 people, who used NHIS cards as a form of identity, were deleted from the electoral roll by the EC in compliance with the Supreme Court order on July 5, 2016.
The court further directed the EC to give the affected persons another opportunity to re-register.