The Upper East Regional Directorate of the Electoral Commission has expressed satisfaction at the just ended limited voter registration exercise after it registered 54,735 new voters
In an interview with Citi News, the Upper East Regional Director of the EC, James Arthur-Yeboah, said the figure represents 9.2% of the current figure of 594,765 registered voters in the region.
According to him, the figure shows that the commission in the region has been able to meet its target.
Police brutalized me for stopping transfer of registration equipment to Togo - Amewu Mr. Arthur-Yeboah noted that during the limited voter registration exercise, the eligibility of 493 applicants were challenged.
Mr. Arthur-Yeboah said his outfit has commenced investigations into those who’s registration were challenged adding that, the various district registration review committees will sit on the cases to either give them their I.D cards or expunge their names from the register depending on evidence of national identity by the challenged applicants.
On the issue of secondary school students turned away for not being able to produce guarantors, Mr. Yeboah conceded that it was a challenge, but was optimistic the Commission will take steps to correct the situation in subsequent exercises.
He advised students in secondary and tertiary institutions whose schools are adjacent to their constituencies not to register in their schools but register in their constituency since there is no vote transfer between adjacent constituencies.
Mr. Yeboah implored on field staff, district and regional directors of the E.C to create more polling centers in second cycle and tertiary institutions to make the Electoral Commission’s work easier.
In another development, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Regional Director of Communications, Edmund Awuni, has accused the governing National Democratic Congress of busing in foreigners from Burkina Faso to register in Feo in the Bongo district.
He further bemoaned the poor publicity of the limited voter registration exercise and also appealed to the E.C to create more registration centers in all secondary and tertiary institutions should the exercise be extended.
But the NDC’s Regional Youth Organizer, Robert Yel-Oni, refuted the allegation made by the NPP stressing that, only Ghanaians who live in Burkina Faso were brought in to register and that the NDC is satisfied with the exercise.
The Electoral Commission said it was hoping to register about 1.2 million new voters at the end of the 2-week exercise.
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