Proxy voters: 534 on the list - EC explains
The Electoral Commission has announced that a total of 534 people will vote under proxy in the December 7, 2016 general elections.
Those on the proxy voters list are registered voters, who due to ill-health or absence from a constituency will be unable to vote on Election Day hence they have appointed proxies who are also registered voters to cast their ballots on their behalf.
According to the EC, the list is made up of 128 voters from Ashanti Region, 40 from Brong Ahafo, 39 from Central Region, 47 from Eastern Region, 189 from Greater Accra, 9 from Northern Region, 7 from Upper East, 8 from Upper West, 13 from Volta and 54 from Western Region.
The Head of Communications at the EC, Mr Eric Kofi Dzakpasu gave the breakdown in a radio interview on Asempa FM Thursday afternoon.
The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) had alleged that the EC had planned to use the proxy voting process to rig the elections and that despite a request for the commission to provide them [NPP] with the list, it was still keeping it.
The NPP’s Director of Elections, Mr Martin Adjei Mensah Korsah had alleged for instance that going by the EC’s directive that all proxy applicants were to personally visit district offices to apply for their fingerprints to be matched against that of their proxies, the party took it upon itself to count the applications and that at the end of the exercise, there were a total of about 370 applications in the whole country.
However, he said the party picked indications that the number had increased to over 2000 and when the Deputy Commissioner in charge of operations, Mr Amadu Sulley was asked about it at an IPAC meeting, he said the EC relaxed the rules to accept some applicants from outside of Ghana.
Listen to Mrs Charlotte Osei here {mp3}ec_on_proxy_voting_numbers_and_special_voting_2016{/mp3}
Regarding the special voting where security agencies, election officials and journalists who by the nature of their work would not be able to vote on Election Day December 7 and hence would be given a special dispensation to vote, the EC has announced that a total of 29,473 would vote.
“We’ve also been told that we are going to use the special voting process to rig the elections. In 2012, we had about 120,000 people who took part in the special voting. this year the number is about half of that excluding the electoral staff and we’ve added the media this year. So the media and security personnel come to about 29,473, so how we are going to use this to rig the elections still defies our imagination,” Mrs Charlotte Osei, Chairperson of the EC said at an earlier interaction with Editors on Thursday.
Writer's email: enoch.frimpong@graphic.com.gh