The Director of Training and IT at the Electoral Commission (EC), Dr. Serebour Quaicoe, has said that the nomination form of an aspirant cannot be invalidated by the endorsement of an unqualified voter.
He says the the Constitutional Instrument (C.I.) guiding the electoral processes says a registered voter is someone whose name is found on the provisional voters’ register and not the final document.
According to him, once the person’s name appears on the provisional register and has a valid ID number, he qualifies to endorse a candidate, and as to whether he is expunged from the final document or not, does not affect the candidate in question.
“Regulation 50 of the CI says a registered voter is someone whose name is in the provisional register,” said Dr. Serebour Quaicoe, Director of IT and Training for the EC in an interview with Captain Smart on Onua TV Tuesday, August 20, 2024.
When asked what becomes the essence of the exhibition of the register, Dr. Quaicoe stated that the list is displayed for reasons such as checking personal details to rectify anomalies including name spelling, difference in image on register and ID card, having a card without a name on the register, registering as an underage and coming to rectify the error amongst others.
Also, he noted that imputing wrong details such as residence of a candidate, double registration, as well as expunging names of deceased persons amongst other anomalies.
The most important thing, according to Dr. Quaicoe, is for an electorate to possess an ID number at the time of endorsing a candidate, and has his/her name on the provisional register, noting that the details don’t really matter.
Meanwhile, National Chairman of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, also speaking on the same show, indicated that the EC made that proposition and fixed it in the CI in 2020 when it insisted on compiling a new voter register despite calls by the opposition to go with the old one.
He explained that at the time the aspirants filed their nominations, the final register had not been completed, the reason it said the Commission added that in the C.I. that, the provisional register makes a voter eligible to endorse a candidate.
“The EC created a problem for themselves from 2020 when they decided to replace the voters’ register so when the time came for the candidates to file a nomination, the final register wasn’t ready. The provisional register hadn’t become final at the time we were filing. That is why they have made a clause in the CI that an eligible voter is the one whose name appears in the provisional register instead of the final,” he stated.
He added that the words of the Director of IT and Training at the EC cannot be sacrosanct since the Commission once dissociated itself from a comment made by a Deputy Commissioner on behalf of the EC.
“A whole Commissioner came to say something on behalf of the Commission and they came to deny so he being a Director, you all are my witnesses,” he added.
‘We have not violated any rules’ – EC on release of voter register a day to exhibition
