Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana has cautioned the general public against checking their eligibility to participate in the 2016 general elections using unauthenticated online applications.

Director of Communications at the Electoral Commission, Mr. Eric Kofi Dzakpasu issued the disclaimer in an interview with OnuaFM on Tuesday, July 19, 2016

As part of the processes towards a clean register, names of persons who registered as voters using the National Health Insurance (NHIS) cards were deleted from the national voters register per the Supreme Court ruling on the Garry Nimako, Abu Ramadan versus the Electoral Commission’s case.

Since the deletion of NHIS registrants, local developers came up with an online app that supposedly allows one to check his/her status on the EC’s voter register online and to know whether he or she was affected.

“Once you log on to the site, machecki.dom, you are asked to enter your voters ID number or NHIS ID number, after which it verifies to tell you whether your name is in the voters’ register or not.”

But Eric Kofi Dzakpasu said the application in question has not been authenticated by the EC hence eligible voters must desist from using it.

He further cautioned that “the site itself has issued a kind of disclaimer that “Machecki is not commissioned by the Electoral Commission or affiliated to the Commission and that is enough to make people stay away”.

Rather, he recommended that people who wish to check online must rather send their Voter’s ID number to short code 6363 on Vodafone, Tigo or MTN.

He was however quick to add that this form of checking one’s eligibility online cannot help rectify any mistakes that might occur.