Pilot Voter Registration Exercise Was Successful – EC

Jean Mensa – Chairperson Of EC

The Electoral Commission (EC) is touting the success of the recently held pilot exercise ahead of the compilation of new voter register.
The commission indicated that the pilot Voters’ registration exercise ended successfully.

It made this known in a statement signed by its Acting Director of Public Affairs, Sylvia Annoh.

The pilot exercise was conducted on the Biometric Voter Registration system in all the 16 regional capitals in the country from June 2 to June 3, 2020.

The essence of the exercise, the EC explained, was to evaluate the preparedness of the Commission for the upcoming Voter Registration Exercise.

Amongst the metrics that were tested was the efficiency of the Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) kits and its adaptability to various operating conditions in various parts of the country, according to the EC.

“The Commission also took the opportunity to evaluate the various mitigation measures it has put in place to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 disease during the registration period.”

“Political Party representatives were present at each of the centres to observe the exercise,” it added.

“The Exercise went on smoothly at all the designated centres, except in the Western region where the BVR Kit developed a fault on the second day. This led to the suspension of the Exercise in the Western region but afforded the Commission the opportunity to test its inbuilt processes of dealing with equipment breakdowns during the registration process.

“The lessons learnt from this investigation will further improve the Commission’s response to such occurrences. It is worthy of note that on the first day of the pilot, the Western Region had the highest number of registered applicants (73).”

“At the end of the two (2) day exercise, a total of 1,990 applicants were registered, with 745 applicants registered on Day one (1) and 1,245 on Day two (2).”

“The table below shows the breakdown of registered applicants by region.”

Number Of Registered Voters

1
BONO
141
2
SAVANNAH
128
3
AHAFO
189
4
CENTRAL
141
5
UPPER WEST
115
6
NOTHERN
154
7
NORTH EAST
103
8
VOLTA
141
9
UPPER EAST
125
10
ASHANTI
166
11
EASTERN
128
12
WESTERN
73
13
OTI
103
14
WESTERN NORTH
100
15
GREATER ACCRA
98
16
BONO EAST
85

        TOTAL

1990

On the second day, the Volta Region and Ahafo Region had the highest number of applicants registered with 105 each. The region with the lowest applicants registered was North East with 51. Using the expected improved performance on the second day, the average number of registrants registered per day was 83 registrants. This metric is expected to only get better. We aim to register over 100 applicants per kit per day, as was attained by some regions during the pilot. At that level of performance and with the continued participation of the Ghanaian public, the Commission is confident of registering some 13 million plus applicants within the first 21 days of the mass registration exercise.
The Commission is satisfied with the exercise and will use the lessons learnt to improve upon the conduct of the upcoming Voter Registration Exercise.
The Commission is appreciative of the interest shown by the general public and political parties to make this pilot worthwhile.

By Melvin Tarlue