The Electoral Commission has urged the general public to disregard falsehoods being peddled on social media regarding the special voting exercise.

According to the EC, a video circulating on social media claiming that the Commission had denied Security Agencies the opportunity to register and take part in the Special Voting exercise slated for Tuesday, December 1 is unfounded, false and baseless.

In a press statement addressing the matter, the EC said they had written to all Security and Media Agencies requesting them to submit the names of their officials who intend to partake in the Special Voting exercise.

“Following the receipt of the various lists, the Electoral Commission captured the details of Applicants on the Special Voters Register,” however a few persons had submitted wrong ID card numbers, the EC stated.

Those persons names, according to the EC, were not reflected on the Special Voters Register as their ID cards were invalid.

“Some of these applicants submitted the ID numbers of the Old Voters ID card,” the EC revealed.

They added that “Following the finalization of the Special Voters Register, the Electoral Commission held discussions with the Security and Media Agencies and provided them with soft copies of the Special Voters Register.

“The Commission presented evidence showing details of persons who were not included in the Special Voters Register as a result of invalid ID card numbers submitted to the Commission.

According to the EC, most of the errors involved wrong Voter ID card digits.

“In most cases, the digits of the Voter ID cards were less or more than ten (10) which is the legitimate number of digits for the Voter ID card.”

The Commission however reached out to those who provided telephone numbers and corrected the wrong information sent.

This category of persons was reflected in the Final Special Voters List, the EC said.

The EC further debunked allegations that the applicants who had applied for the Special Voting but whose names were not captured in the Special Voters Register due to the fact that their ID card numbers were invalid, would not be allowed to vote during the Elections on December 7.

According to the Commission the claim is false and should be disregarded.

The Commission stated that it has no interest in preventing applicants from utilizing the special voting facility and “For the first time in the history of the Electoral Commission, the Register of Special Voters as well as the Locations for Special Voting has been published on the website of the Commission.”

The Commission has therefore called on Security Agencies “to investigate the falsehood being peddled on social media by the purported ‘‘Security Expert’’ and entreat the public to disregard this video as the contents are completely FALSE.”

They assured the general public that the “Commission is ready to undertake the Special Voting Exercise on Tuesday, the 1st of December, 2020 and we entreat Applicants to visit our website to ascertain details of their voting locations.”