Confusion erupted Saturday morning at the Ngleshie Amanfrom constituency causing voting in the ongoing 2019 National Democratic Congress presidential primary to be suspended temporarily.
The confusion was sparked by a decision by officials of the Electoral Commission to split the centre into polling stations to fast track the voting process which was slowed by the search for the names of the various delegates in the register.
Some delegates who came in earlier to join a queue and were close to taking their turn to cast their ballots were infuriated by the decision to get them to form new queues based on their wards as agreed on by the party ahead of the polls.
The misunderstanding caused voting to be halted for about 10 minutes before officials of the EC and the party resolved the issue.
Electoral Commission’s official at the Constituency, Samuel Mingle, explained to our correspondent Adwoa Adobea-Owusu that the party prior to the today had agreed that the delegates vote in wards [based on their respective polling centres].
However, he said they started arriving individually to form queues which were not based on the agreed wards; something he said made it difficult for electoral officials to locate the names of the delegates on the register.
“They are coming individually so it is making searching of the name in the register very difficult so their chairman asked them to be in wards,” the EC official said.
Mr. Mingle said because some of them had joined the queue and were close to picking their ballot to cast their vote, they became agigitated when asked to collapse the queue they had form for a new one based on wards.
“They didn’t understand and that created the confusion,” he stated, adding after the party officials explained things to them, they “understood and now polls have resumed and going on peacefully”.
Some 980 delegates are expected to vote in this constituency to elect a candidate to lead the NDC into the 2020 general elections.
By 3news.com|Ghana