Asiedu Nketia, the General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has alleged that the Electoral Commission (EC) wants to change the existing law on elections in the country.
This follows proposed Constitutional Instrument (C.I) by the EC for continuous registration.
Mr Nketia explained that the Commission’s real intention for introducing the C.I was not for continuous registration because the whole idea of trying to throw dust into the eyes of the citizenry for continuous registration was completely false.
Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, former Chairperson of the EC, warned of possible multiple voting and ballot stuffing in the 2024 polls should the Commission’s proposed Constitutional Instrument receive parliamentary approval and defined multiple voting as where a person voted more than once.
He indicated that ballot stuffing, on the other hand, was where an unscrupulous person puts into the ballot box additional ballot papers that were not duly cast in accordance with the election law and affirmed that the two voting anomalies could occur because the proposed law captured two kinds of Voters Register.
According to Mr Nketia, “there are no two laws for registration in the nation and it had always been one law for registration and the same law that will provide for registration can be used for continuous registration and can also be used for limited registration and a total overhaul of the register.
“Going by the history of the Electoral Commission, nobody is convinced if it just comes out without anything in the law and then to tell the citizenry to believe they are going to use it for continuous registration and what happens if they use it for something else? When the new proposed C.I comes into force all the laws based on which the previous registers have been done, they are all going to be repealed,” he bemoaned.
Mr Nketia alluded to the fact that he suspected the Commission wanted to change the law by doing away with the 2020 register by their history and cited the use of the National Health Insurance card to support his claim since they had been here before and could not be trusted.
He insisted that the EC had used health insurance card as document in registering to build a previous register, the issue was closed and had the register intact, then a court ruled the Health Insurance card could not be used to identify citizens for the purpose of registration which compelled the Commission to delete all names of people who registered with health insurance card.