The Electoral Commission (EC) says despite few irregularities recorded in the ongoing general elections, the process is generally peaceful.
EC Director of Elections, Samuel Tettey at a media briefing in Accra, Wednesday said the Commission is in constant touch with its officials across the country to have every issue addressed.
Few irregularities have been reported six hours after polls opened across the country for the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections.
Voting in some polling stations started late especially in the Greater Accra, Western, Northern, Central and Brong Ahafo Regions.
This development, Joy News gathered was due to the late arrival of election materials, EC officials and security personnel.
In Wiasso polling station in the Bekwai Constituency of the Ashanti Region in particular, voting started late as 10:00 a.m. because of the non-availability of inks for voters to use.
Joy News’ visit to the polling station revealed voters had scuffles with a security officer who offered his ink for use. They suspected the security officer might have some strange materials in is car.
Acknowledging the challenges faced by both electorate and EC officials in the ongoing execise, the EC said it has activated its line of communication to resolve them.
“We have had reports from all the ten regions and in some, voting started a little after 7:00 a.m. due to the absence of security officers and EC officials,” Mr Tettey said.
According to him, in areas where EC officials failed to show up, reserved polling officers have been dispatched to get the exercise running.
“In areas without security men, we got in touch with police administration and new officers have been sent to the areas,” he added.
There were incidents of deleted names of voters at Jaman North Constituency in the Brong Ahafo Region. The Director of Elections explained some names were mistakenly deleted when they were trying to deactivate the bar codes of some Special Voters from the system.
“All voters who were put on the Special list instructions were given that their details be deactivated and their barcodes destroyed but mistakenly other voters also had their barcodes deleted,” Mr Tettey said.
He said that upon realising what has happened, a message was sent by the Commission to the IT department to have all the Regional Director initiate processes to have such persons vote.
Mr Tettey stressed that voters who registered with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) card will be unable to vote since their names have been deleted from the electoral roll following Supreme Court ruling in a case challenging the credibility of the register.
Names of scores of voters in Bekwai have been reported missing in the register, but the Commissioner said he was informed most of them used NHIS card to get onto the Voter’s register.
“Once your name is not in the register you cannot exercise your franchise,” he added.
Barring other challenges which the Commission is addressing, Mr Tettey said the polls have been orderly with effective collaboration with all the stakeholders.
Source: myjoyonline
