The Electoral Commission (EC) has postponed indefinitely the limited voters registration exercise scheduled for June 20 to 29 this year.
This is to allow for further consultations between the EC and its stakeholders.
According to a source at the EC, the commission always relied on teachers to facilitate most electoral exercises but when the EC consulted the Ghana Education Service in relation to the limited registration exercise, it became apparent that the timing was not favourable.
The GES, the source explained, was in the last term of the academic year which was loaded with a lot of activities and therefore, the service could not assist effectively with the exercise.
According to the source, the limited registration exercise was likely to come off after July 24.
This was disclosed to the Daily Graphic after the Inter- Party Advisory Committee meeting in Accra yesterday.
Limited registration
The source said the registration exercise would be done on electoral area basis and larger electoral areas would be segmented.
It said after the registration exercise there would be an exhibition of the whole register at various polling stations to ensure that inconsistencies were addressed.
It said the EC was going to apply the C174 law in the upcoming limited voter’s registration exercise.
“The law says that location of registration should be where you live or where you are ordinarily resident. The law defines ordinarily resident as having lived in the location for at least 12 months in five years. It says where you sleep is where you live” it added.
NDC calls for prosecution
Meanwhile, the General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketia, speaking to journalists after the meeting, said NDC disagreed with the decision taken by the EC not to prosecute defaulting presiding officers in the 2012 general election.
According to him, the NDC would find ways of ensuring that the EC rescinded that decision.
Mr Nketia said the NDC insisted that the 905 presiding officers who either failed or refused to sign the pink sheets which resulted in the 2012 election petition should be prosecuted.
According to him, if people who breached the law were let off the hook just like that they would continue to breach the law.
“Prosecution is different from sentencing, however if they are prosecuted and they give their justifications before the court the whole nation will…” he added.
He said in the meeting stakeholders discussed how to improve on electoral processes in Ghana, among other issues.