Jean Menssa, Chairperson of the Electoral Commission
The Electoral Commission (EC) has assured that the register to be used for the December 7 presidential and parliamentary elections will be “a wholly owned Ghanaian enterprise.”
This is because it is working assiduously to ensure there is no foreign infiltration in the register by way of de-duplication and adjudication.
Speaking at the “Let the Citizen Know” series to update Ghanaians on the status of the just-ended voters’ registration exercise, the EC Chairperson, Mrs Jean Mensa, said that at the end of the exercise, the number of challenge cases amounted to 37,762, mainly because of the incidence of non-Ghanaians illegally registering for the voter ID cards in border towns, with the exception of Ahafo.
“We are confident that the challenge processes initiated at all districts throughout the country will unearth these illegal persons and rid the register of those who do not qualify to be on the register,” she said.
“We are confident that the register that will be used for the 2020 Elections will be a wholly Ghanaian enterprise, reflecting qualified Ghanaians and Ghanaians only,” Mrs Mensa added.
Update
The EC Chair announced that at the end of the exercise 16,963,306 persons had registered to vote.
The Greater Accra Region had the most registered voters with 3, 5900,805 persons. The Ashanti Region followed with, 3,013,856 persons; Eastern Region with 1,628,108 persons and the Central Region with 1,566,061 persons.
The number includes the 30,814 persons registered during the two-day mop-up registration exercise over the weekend.
According to her, 64,966 with disability were successfully registered in the process, representing 0.56 per cent of the total number of persons registered.
“At the end of the registration exercise, our statistics show that 8,775,609 women registered, compared to 8,187,698. Women make up 51.73 per cent of the register whilst men make up 48.27 per cent. The Upper East Region recorded the highest number of female registrants, per population, with 54.6 per cent. The Western Region had the highest number of male registrants, per population, with 51.2 per cent,” she said.
First-time voters, that is persons 18 years of age at the time of their registration, were 762,944 while those who are 19 years totaled 612,104.
“In a nutshell, the total number of 18- and 19-year olds who had registered at the end of the exercise amount to 1,375,048. This figure represents 8.1 per cent of the total register,” she said.
Mrs Mensa noted that out of the over 16 million persons who registered at the end of the exercise, 60.09 per cent used the Ghana Card; 37.99 per cent registered through the guarantor system; while 1.92 per cent registered with passports.
The Commission expects the figure to drop after the de-duplication and adjudication processes.
