The Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) says majority of journalists cannot vote under Special Voting in the December polls because their namew are missing in the Special Voting list.

According to the GJA, they have resolved the issue with the EC to allow journalists a special dispensation on election day since they cannot vote as Special voters on December 1.

“Once the list was published, the EC doesn’t have to tell us that if you don’t get the chance to vote on the 1st, the next thing will be for you to vote on the 7th of December. The point is, the list was published and it’s not as if the list was given to us earlier.

“There was no provisional list otherwise, we would have seen the anomalies and have rectified it.  It’s not the best that journalists can’t vote early because I had a personal experience as a journalist and the inconvenience wasn’t a good thing,” the General Secretary of the GJA Kofi Yeboah told Francis Abban on the Morning Starr Thursday.

Reacting to the development, Dr. Serebour Quaicoe, Director of Electoral Services at the Electoral Commission said majority of people who filed for Special Voting have been captured by the EC’s list.

“We have captured majority of the people who registered for Special voting. Over 109,000 names have been captured and that is the Majority. For the situation with the GJA I think journalists should ask from where they sent their names. They had issues with the compilation of the details of their members”.

The Electoral Commission released the list of Special voters on November 9, 2020. Special voters are individuals whose services will be required on voting day such as the security officials and journalists and so are allowed to vote early before the day of elections. Special Voting will take place on December 1, 2020 while the main polls will take place on December 7.

Speaking to Francis Abban on the Morning Starr Thursday, Mr Bonaa said the challenge must be addressed before election day.

“I know a senior officer who registered in his hometown and wanted to go and vote there. He went to check and his name wasn’t on the list. He goes around and found out that his name is in Navrongo and even that, his name was spelt wrongly. I can tell you without fear that some units have about 99% of their personnel missing on the special voter’s list and these are real challenges,” he said.