Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Asiedu Nketiah, says the Electoral Commission (EC) abandoned scientific knowledge for guesswork for the just-ended Limited Voter Registration Exercise.

He made this statement in relation to the target set by the Commission for the 21-day exercise.

The Commission's objective was to register approximately 1,350,000 individuals on the electoral roll. However, the EC indicated that it did not anticipate registering all 1,350,000 targeted individuals within the 21-day registration period.

As such, the Commission revised their target to approximately 700,000, which accounts for 52 percent of the original goal.

During a press conference held in Accra to provide an update on the ongoing registration process, Dr. Eric Bossman Asare, Deputy Chairman in charge of Corporate Services at the EC, stated that as of the 16th day of the registration exercise, the Commission had registered 673,276 new voters.

“The Commission is within a striking distance of the targeted 700,000 persons to be registered in this exercise,” he said.

Reacting to this in an interview on JoyNews, Mr Asiedu Nketiah noted that the target set by the EC was unwarranted as the Commission does not hold census in the country.

According to the NDC Chair, the Commission should have relied on data from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) and not some sort of "guesswork".

"We stated in the past that this cannot count as a good registration exercise. Who set the target? Why should the EC set the target. Based on what? The constitution says that register every Ghanaian 18 years and above can participate in all elections.

"Are you not the one who determines the number of Ghanaians who are 18 years and above? Is the Electoral Commission the one that does the census in Ghana? There is a body that conducts population census and the figure they have tells you that those are 18 years and above, this is their number and you go there setting targets unrelated to the population census figures.

"So what is the basis of setting the target if you keep revising it? They started setting a target of 1.5 million. Somewhere in the middle, they said they have revised it to 750,000 and so on. So it's like some guesswork. They are using guesswork in running the place," he said.

On Monday, October 2, the limited voter registration exer­cise by the Electoral Commission (EC) ended across all 268 district offices of the commission.

But some political parties are calling on the Electoral Commission to extend the exercise.