The Electoral Commission (EC) says at the end of day 36 of the voters registration exercise, a total of 16,932,492 potential voters were registered.
Chairperson of the EC, Jean Mensa, made this known on Wednesday, August 12, at Let The Citizen Know press conference held in Accra.
Mop-up Exercise
According to the Chairperson, at the end of the Mop-up Exercise, 30,814 persons successfully registered as part of the 2020 Voters Registration Exercise.
“The total number of registered voters at the end of the Exercise stands at 16 million 963 thousand 306 (16,963,306),” she added.
As explained at all our “Let the Citizen Know” encounters, these are provisional figures, she said.
“The process of deduplication which is ongoing will flag multiple registrations in the system. Additionally, the Challenge system put in place during the Registration and Exhibition Exercise will further flag unqualified voters on the register,” she noted.
Ultimately, she added, these processes will contribute to the cleaning of the register and ensure its credibility ahead of the 2020 Elections.
Challenge Cases
At the end of the Exercise, the EC boss indicated that the number of Challenge cases amounted to 37,762.
“This represents 0.20% of the total register. The regional breakdown will be available online,” she explained.
From the data, according to her, one can observe that the Oti Region had the highest number of Challenge cases per population with 0.51% of registrations being challenged.
This is followed by the Ahafo Region where 0.38% of registrations were challenged, and then the Volta Region with 0.37% of registrations were challenged.
“It is evident that most of the Challenge cases are from border regions with the exception of Ahafo. It gives reason to assume that the Challenges relate to citizenship issues emanating from the infiltration of foreigners. At a later date we will shed more light on our findings.”
“The Commission is mindful of the infiltration of foreigners at a number of our Registration Centres. Additionally, we are aware that a number of minors have also found their way into the register. We are confident that the Challenge processes initiated at all Districts throughout the country will unearth these illegal persons and rid the register of those who do not qualify to be on the register.
“We are confident that the register that will be used for the 2020 Elections will be a wholly Ghanaian enterprise reflecting qualified Ghanaians and Ghanaians only,” the EC boss stressed.
By Melvin Tarlue