The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Member of Parliament for Effutu Constituency in the Central Region, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, has threatened to prevent anyone whose name is not found on his copy of the list of special voters from participating in Thursday’s exercise.
About 127,900 persons are expected to cast their votes in the special voting exercise across the country on Thursday, December 1 ahead of the main general elections on December 7.
But Mr. Markins says he doubts the credibility of the list handed to them.
Speaking on the Eyewitness News on Wednesday, he said, the Electoral Commission (EC) had not presented the exact complement of the list of special voters in his constituency to the District electoral office.
According to him the EC had smuggled new names including unto the list without the consent of the various stakeholders.
He also alleged that those added the EC to the list were not security or media personnel or election officials as expected by election laws.
“We received the special voters register for this election and we cross-checked with the EC and upon our reconciliation, the names that are in the register are not the same of the EC district office has been provided with.”
“When we questioned her about the names, we found 18 year-olds, 21-year-olds and these people are not security officials, or election officials and they are not also journalists,” he said.
He expressed worry that there appeared to be 190 new names of special voters the EC had added the list that was not yet available to the Effutu district office.
“Tomorrow morning, I will personally be an agent, with another person. Anybody who does not qualify to be a special voter and for some reason come to the polling station will be stopped and will not be allowed to vote,” he said.
“Elections is a serious business, so if you sit unconcerned, things we get under your knee and before you realize, its gone. It will not happen. We are stakeholders, and we will prevent any unwanted person to attempts to vote,” he added.
‘Name of temporary election staff not available’
With barely 24 hours to special voting exercise, Mr Afenyo Markin said the party is yet to be given the list of temporary election staff who are expected to serve at the various polling stations contrary to the electoral laws.
He further called on the Electoral Commissioner, Charlotte Osei and the Effutu District office of the Commission to immediately furnish him with the full list of persons to participate in the special voting exercise before the start of polls at 7am on Thursday.
He further noted that the NPP will file a protest to stop the special voting exercise if the EC does not provide the list by 7am.
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