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The Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) with their observation at strategic constituencies between July 6 and July 17 for a total of 8 days have noted with concern, some of the challenges with the on-going voter’s registration exercise in the country.

Although they have described the Phase 2 and 3 of the on-going registration exercise as having been “conducted in accordance with relevant electoral rules and regulations”, they also raised concerns about the health safety and security challenges observed at some of the registration centres.

In their second preliminary report on the exercise, CODEO details incidents of confusion, chaos and violence, which led to the death of an individual in the Banda constituency of the Bono Region.

The report condemned all these incidents of violence and implored “the security agencies to step up efforts to bring all perpetrators of violence to book” in order to serve as a deterrent to others.

The Coalition further warned that “failure on the part of the security agencies to act on such violent incidents would send a wrong signal to criminals and make mockery of the new law on vigilantism.”

They also made an appeal to all the political parties, particularly the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) “to check the conduct of their agents deployed in [the] registration centres.”

With regards to the health and safety of the registrants, out of the 200 centres monitored, CODEO noted that observance to the COVID-19 safety protocols was not always enforced.

Out of the 200 voters’ registration centres observed, only 38% of the centres were reported to have sanitized the fingerprint scanning devices before and after each use.

In some instances, the devices were never wiped, while some centres also reported a shortage of hand-washing facilities.

Overall, the Coalition hopes that this report would activate “the responsiveness of the EC, the Election Security Taskforce and indeed, all stakeholders, to these challenges and further improve the conduct and security of the registration processes.”