A total of 109,557 out of the voter population of 17,027,641 will be voting today in the Special Voting by security personnel, media personnel and some workers of the Electoral Commission (EC)ahead of December 7 general elections .
Those taking part in today’s special voting would have special duties to perform on the voting day for the general elections, hence the opportunity offered them to exercise their democratic and constitutional rights to vote earlier to be able to perform those special duties on voting day.
The Chairperson of the EC, Jean Mensa, who made these known yesterday said 13,997 underage and foreigners have been identified and put on the Exception List and so they would not be allowed to vote on December 7 while 15,880 who also did double registration would also not be allowed to vote next week.
The EC Chairperson however denied social media rumours that the EC is intentionally removing names of qualified voters in the main register and adding them to the Exception List.
Out of the total voter population, females constitute 51.74% making a total of 8,810,283 while males constitute 48.26% making a total of 8,217,358.
The EC Chairperson announced that it has put all things in place for the declaration of results and that within 24 hours after the count of votes, results would be declared.
“For the information of the general public, the Exception List and Multiple List prior to 2016 general election amounted to 800,000 persons. They were banned from voting in the 2016 general elections. Today these persons have been given the opportunity to register and vote on December 7,” the EC Chairperson said.
Ms. Mensa said at the end of exhibition exercise, the commission undertook a thorough review and analysis of the register and realised that the names of 542 persons who actually registered during the registration exercise could not be captured in the final register.
She said names of all those who registered but could not be captured in the final register would be published at the district offices of the commission and also on the commission’s website (https//registers.ec.gov.gh) so that they would have the opportunity to vote.
According to the EC Chairperson, such unfortunate qualified voters whose names would be placed at the district offices would be manually verified at the polling stations to be able to vote.
“The commission will send their details and Form 1A and 1Cs to the polling stations where they registered for them to cast their votes during the elections,” she said.
The EC Chairperson also said that the commission has provided a USSD code for registered voters to check their details on all networks, adding that voters can access their details by dialing *711*2020# free of charge.
The EC Chairperson also appealed to any voter who has issues with his or her registration to immediately contact the nearest district office of the EC across the country for immediate remedy before December 7.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr