EC's Machines In Comer; Ventilators Needed—Mr. Mathias Tulasi

Mr. Mathias Tulasi, the Chief Executive Officer of Literacy Ambassadors Ghana (LAG), a non-governmental literacy organisation has said, the machines being used by the Electoral Commission for its piloting exercise are problematic due to its coma nature.

Mr Mathias Tulasi said this when reacting to the piloting exercise by the Electoral Commission which started across the sixteen (16) regional capitals yesterday in Ghana.

Below is his full statement

The Electoral Commission (EC) yesterday 2nd June, 2020 commenced the piloting of the new voters registration in all 16 regional capitals ahead of the needless mass registration exercise to be conducted at over 33,367 polling centres.

The test run for the production of dummy cards, was aimed at identifying potential challenges to enable their technical team address them with the alacrity it deserves.

Surprisingly, that wasn't the case because at the Volta Regional Office of the Electoral Commission at Ho, where l observed the process, the machines went into coma for several hours.

Some Ghanaians of 18 years and above with sound mind that came there to participate in the process were later told to go home when the machines went into coma for long hours.

At their office yesterday, participants were made to present either a Ghanaian passport or Ghana card as proof of identification or have two guarantors to enable them register for the dummy card.

It took those with either the Ghana card or passport about 21minutes to complete the process and those who do not have the two specified identification resorted to the guarantor option and spent about 25 minutes and above to complete the process.

To ensure safety of participants, the Commission put in place safety measures and urged those who came there to observe the protocols against COVID-19.

But, l must say, the commission did not adhered to the 25 people at the registration centre at a time.

One, will ask, if that is not ensured during the piloting process how would they effectively do so during the needless mass registration exercise?

According to the Electoral Commission's officials, the machines brought for the exercise are new. But surprisingly, for three (3) people who participated in process after the machine captured their data, it indicated duplicate.

Where then from the issue of duplicate? Are the new machines having some data already in it?

The coma state of the machines made it that only 36 participants were successfully registered and provided with dummy cards for an exercise that started in the morning and ended at 5:30PM.

Something must be done about the machines for efficiency as today is the day two (2) and the last day of the piloting process perhaps providing the machines with ventilators.

It is important to add that the Electoral Commission of Ghana, must educate the public especially those participating in the piloting process to understand that, the cards cannot be used because some of the people who participated in the process yesterday thought they had registered for the New Voter's ID Card.