Dr. Eric Bossman Asare
The Electoral Commission (EC) has registered 673,276 potential voters in the first 16 days since it started with the limited voter registration exercise three weeks ago.
Deputy Chairperson of the EC, Dr. Eric Bossman Asare, who announced this yesterday at press conference at the commission’s headquarters in Accra, said the number of registered voters was within its targeted 700,000 eligible voters to be registered by the end of the exercise.
According to him, though a number of qualified people have registered across the 16 regions of the country, Ashanti Region recorded the highest number of registered voters of 111,593, representing 16.6%, followed by the Greater Accra Region which recorded 90,099, representing 13.4%.
According to him, Eastern Region recorded 69,597 voters, representing 10.3%, while Central Region recorded 63,228, representing 9.4%.
Northern Region also recorded 52,410, representing 7.8%; Upper East, 33,778, representing 5.0%; Volta Region, 43, 099, representing 6.4%; Bono East, 28,687, representing 4.3 %; Upper West, 23,350, representing 3.5%, and Bono recorded 23,365, representing 3.5%.
The rest are North East, 17, 692, representing 6.2%; Savannah, 16,045, representing 2.4%; Oti, 18,468, representing 2.7%; Western North, 22,386, representing 3.3% while Ahafo recorded 17,210 representing 2.6%.
According to the EC, though it recorded a low turnout at the beginning of the registration exercise due to some teething problems, registration turnout have however improved considerably with an average of 50,000 people registering per day since last week.
He also mentioned that the number of males that registered since the beginning of the exercise continues to increase more than the females, which were noticeable in all the regions except in the North East and Upper West where females outnumbered males by 60 and 14.
On the breakdown of male to female statistics, he said the Oti Region recorded the highest percentage of registered males and the lowest percentage of registered females at 54.5% and 45.5% respectively as of Wednesday, September 27, 2023.
The Deputy EC Chairperson further stated that the replacement of voter ID cards will also begin on October 3, 2023 in all its district offices across the country, with opportunity for people to make payment via a short code through various mobile networks that would be made available to the public soon to reduce the burden on applicants, while those who also want to transfer their votes to other districts will have the opportunity to do so from October 3 to 9 in all district offices as well.
He said to ensure qualified voters were not in any way disenfranchised, the commission increased the number of kits in the district offices to accommodate the large numbers at the registration centres.
This intervention, he said, would enable all eligible persons who avail themselves at the registration centres to be registered by the deadline of October 2.
By Ebenezer K. Amponsah