Editorial by Ghanaian Times: Patronise voter registration no matter what!

We believe the Electoral Commission (EC) has publicised enough of its limited voter registration exercise scheduled for Tuesday, May 7, 2024, to Monday, May 27, 2024, ahead of the December 2024 presidential and parliamentary elections.

However, we wish to encourage eligible citizens to patronise the exercise to become registered voters who can exercise their franchise in any national election in the country henceforth.

The 21-day exercise is targeted at individuals who turned 18 after the last voter registration and those over 18 who have not yet registered as voters.

It is unfortunate that the exercise took off yesterday amid some incidents.

The most unfortunate one had to do with the technical or system issues with the EC’s registration machines, which caused varied periods of delay in the commencement of the exercise at various centres.

Obviously, these problems were unexpected, so the EC must be proactive enough to prevent recurrence or be alert and fast enough to resolve them should they occur again.

Our fear is that, considering their frustrations, some of the yet-to-be-registered voters can call it quits, and the EC would fail to achieve its target of registering 623,000 eligible voters.

This may mean that some eligible voters would have been directly or indirectly disenfranchised, all because the technical problems with the EC’s machines frustrated their efforts to register and they developed apathy for the exercise.

We, however, trust in the EC’s repeated commitment to ensuring a successful exercise and thus join it in calling for restraints and cooperation from the prospective voters.

Technical problems can occur even when they are least expected.

The incidents involving political party agents at some registration centres also take some shine from the exercise meant to enhance citizens’ participation in the country’s electoral system.

If the reports reaching our news desk are anything to go by, then we call for the strongest condemnation of the attempt by representatives or agents of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to get a non-Ghanaian registered at the University of Mines and Technology, Tark­wa (UMaT) centre in Tark­wa-Nsuaem Constituency in the Western Region.

If the police had delayed intervening in the matter, the tussle between the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the NDC could have resulted in violent clashes likely to mar the smooth running of the exercise.