Private legal practitioner Kwame Jantuah has issued a warning to the Electoral Commission (EC), urging caution in avoiding potential chaos resulting from its proposed modifications.
His concerns come in response to the EC's suggestion of reducing the close of polls from 5 pm to 3 pm and making the Ghana Card the sole proof of identification during the elections.
The proposed adjustment, according to the EC, aims to enhance transparency and orderly vote tallying by electoral officers in daylight.
Additionally, the utilisation of the Ghana Card as the exclusive identification document is intended to address concerns related to the participation of non-citizens in elections.
In response to these proposals, Jantuah criticised the EC's previous insistence on using the Ghana Card as the sole identification for voter registration, emphasising that it nearly deprived many individuals of their civic responsibility due to a lack of the document.
“This is not a party issue. This is a national issue we have to discuss and make sure that we do it in such a way that everybody is clear,” an onuaonline.com report stated.
Expressing reservations about the Ghana Card requirement, Jantuah cautioned, “How many people have a Ghana Card? She should be very careful she doesn’t cause mayhem. What is the issue? The issue is the counting at night? Make it possible for counting to happen at any given time that elections end. That is what she should be concentrating on and not trying to disenfranchise voters.”
Jantuah further called for the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) to be empowered to conduct extensive public education instead of shortening the polling hours to 3 pm.
“Give NCCE a lot of money to start training and educating people that ‘don’t wait until the last minute to go and vote, as much as possible, get there early,” he said.
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Kwame Jantuah also suggested to the EC to draft a Constitutional Instrument to Parliament to change the date of the general elections from December 7 to the first Saturday of December in an election year.
“Maybe what the EC should do, should probably send a C.I. to Parliament and indicate that elections should be held first Saturday of the month of December instead of 7 because 7 can fall on a weekday but if it’s the first Saturday, at least not a lot of people work on Saturdays and employers will be prepared to give leverage for voting.
“Maybe that is what we should be looking at instead of saying that you drastically would change from 5 pm to 3 pm. Even if we want to try it, move it an hour to say, 4 pm, to give people the time,” added
Additionally, Jantuah proposed an alternative solution, suggesting that the EC submit a Constitutional Instrument (C.I.) to Parliament to change the date of general elections from December 7 to the first Saturday of December in an election year.
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