The Electoral Commission (EC) has described the just ended exhibition of the voters register as successful.
According to the commission, a total of 7,969,807 prospective voters were able to verify and authenticate their details during the just-ended 10-day Voters Register exhibition held at the 33,367 centres nationwide.
The figure represents 46.9 per cent of the total number of people whose names were on the provisional register.
Mrs Jean Mensa, the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), who announced this at the ‘Let the Citizen Know’ media briefing in Accra said the exercise was successful.
She explained that the short message service introduced by the commission recorded 698,404 prospective voters verifying and authenticating their data in the register.
Mrs Mensa said a total of 7,969,807 prospective voters verified their names at the exhibition centres.
Comparing a similar exercise that preceded the last general elections, she said the turnout rate for the 2016 exhibition, which lasted for 21-days was 46.5 per cent while the recent 10-day exercise recorded a turnout rate of 46.9 per cent.
The EC Chairperson said just as expected there were concerns raised during the exercise, and that the essence of the exercise was to allow prospective voters to check their details, including their names, sex, age and pictures.
She said the Commission was competent and could fix all the challenges, explaining that “The information technology systems are robust and issues that came up were as a result of administrative and human errors which are been corrected.
Citing cases in Ashaiman and other areas where some names were missing from the register, Mrs Mensa said those names were being restored through the process of inclusion.
Mrs Mensa said the electoral processes were as ‘open as day and transparent as the sun’ and could not be said to be flawed.
She said the EC decided to extend the exhibition process to allow for inspection and also to afford all its stakeholders to verify their details, emphasizing that the EC has no intention to disenfranchise anyone.
By: Isaac Clottey
