EC to turn away eligible voters who flout Covid-19 measures

The Director of Electoral Services of the Electoral Commission, Ghana (EC), Dr Serebour Quaicoe, has hinted that directives have been given to registration officers at the various centres to turn away any persons who flout measures put in place to prevent the spread of coronavirus. He said the directives demand that officers see to it that persons comply with the protocols at all times. The new voter registration exercise, which started on Tuesday, June 30, has seen would-be voters defying the social distancing rule in the fight against Covid-19. The EC says it has been helpless particularly outside the perimeter of the registration where applicants lay in wait to begin the process of registration. Most centers have been overcrowded with security officials having hard times to control the teeming numbers. Speaking on The Key Points on TV3/3FM on Saturday, July 4, Dr Quaicoe admitted that the snub of the social distancing protocol has been the only dent in the exercise thus far. As a result, he observed, measures have been taken by the Commission to ensure that all who visit a registration centre complies with the protocols. First of all, he said, a system has been created to provide chits for all eligible persons in order to control who come to the centres. He said the chits contain numbers, allowing personnel to control who are to be at the centre and at what time. This is like a Queue Management System. Secondly, registration officers have been ordered to drive away persons who flout the safety protocols. “So, those people shouldn’t be registered once they have flouted the rules and should go back and organize themselves and come back prepared to abide by the instructions,” he said. And finally, he said, security officers stationed at each centre have been asked to ensure that even queues outside the perimeter are orderly. But Dr Quaicoe stressed that individuals should be personally held accountable for their actions. “I believe that we are dealing with adults and they should know that the disease is real, it affects people and people are dying by that. “So even before you think of going to the registration centre, you must have gone by the rules and you don’t need to be attacking the EC. “It is the responsibility of everybody to help educate the people.” He revealed that a mobile team of registrants will also be deployed to help at centres where there are overwhelming numbers. By Emmanuel Kwame Amoh|editors.3news.com|Ghana Follow @kwame_amoh