According to him, “those who expressed various degrees of hysteria and negativity towards the exercise, with some, who swore heaven and earth to resist the compilation of the register at the peril of their lives”, ended up partaking in the registration.
It is good to note that the opposition did not only come from the National Democratic Congress.
Some concerned Ghanaians, before the exercise in May, told GhanaWeb that they were not going to get their names rolled unto the new voters register for fear of contracting the virus in the process.
Mixed reactions greeted the exercise, despite the assurance that all the safety protocols were going to be adhered to at all registration centres.
Jethro a resident of New Town, a suburb of Accra in an interview with GhanaWeb on May 19, 2020, said he was not going to partake in the exercise due to COVID-19.
He said, “I think the EC should suspend the exercise for next year. We can use the old register for the election and next year they can compile a new register. I think that will be the best option because going a queue this time is riskier than us using the old one but if they open it I will go and register”.
Another also said, “I will not partake in that exercise; we have not seen any economic progress in Ghana therefore I will not form a queue and do the so-called registration. It is all waste of money, why would we have another re-registration while the old one is still valid? I don’t see it as something we should embark on”.
There were numerous warnings of a possible surge in COVID-19 cases should the government go ahead with the exercise but addressing the nation on Sunday, President Akufo-Addo mentioned that “at the end of the day, Ghanaians did their civic duty, by going out to register, having found that the process was overwhelmingly orderly, peaceful, and safe”.
According to the Electoral Commission, a total of 16,663,699 voters have had their names on the new register as at the end of the exercise on Thursday, August 6, 2020.
