EC Reviews Limited Voter Registration Figures

The Electoral Commission (EC) will soon hold a meeting to review the outcome of the limited voter registration exercise and make the details known to the public. It is expected to conduct an overview of the whole exercise and analyse what went right or wrong, before releasing the number of people who registered during the 10-day exercise. The Director of Public Affairs of the EC, Mrs Sylvia Annor, who made this known to the Daily Graphic yesterday, said any figure released by the regional offices of the commission could only be provisional. The exercise The exercise, which was held from August 4, 2014 to August 13, 2014, gave an opportunity to Ghanaians who could not register during previous registration exercises before the 2012 general elections and those who had attained the age of 18, after the last registration exercise, to do so. Reports indicate that some regional offices of the EC have released results of the exercise held in their respective regions, but Mrs Annor says those figures can only be regarded as provisional until the national review exercise had been undertaken. Processes Explaining the processes involved, she said after the close of day during the registration exercise, copies of the list of people registered, known as the Daily Printouts, were given to all the political parties, in accordance with the electoral law. She said copies of the Daily Printouts were also sent to the national headquarters of the commission in Accra for re-matching to check them against infractions such as double registration. Mrs Annor said in instances where challenges were raised against the eligibility of any applicant in respect of age, nationality and unlawful representation, the applicant would not be issued with a voter�s identity card until the determination of the challenge. She said the challenge would then be investigated by the District Registration Review Committee (DRRC), and based on the evidence adduced to support the challenge or otherwise, the applicant so challenged might be issued or not issued with a voter�s identity card. In that regard, she said, the number of registered voters collated at the registration centres could only be provisional because it might differ from the final results after the number of applicants challenged, but who might have been cleared, had been added.