The Electoral Commission (EC) says there will be no need for an extension of the just ended limited voters’ registration exercise since it registered 92 percent of new voters.
The commission’s response
follows demands by some political parties, student bodies, and individuals for it to extend the period to allow more people to register. The Commission prior to the exercise said it was targeting about 1.2 million new voters. It says only about 8 percent of people were unable to register. “If you look at the analysis by the statistical service, we were trying to achieve a target of 1.2 million that is the register-able population. Fortunately at the end of the exercise, the figures that we had from the three regions indicate that we have 1, 105,686 which represents about 92% so our targets have really been achieved,” the Director of Electoral Services, Samuel Tetteh explained.
Asked whether it is normal for the Commission to have over 92% of the applicants coming to the registration centres to register, Mr. Tetteh said “one of the basic features of the registration is that it must be all-inclusive in the sense that it must be able to capture all those who are eligible to register.”
Mr. Tetteh explained that although calls for the registration process to be extended may be genuine, the “tight” timetable of the EC will not allow for an extension.
“Their calls may be very genuine but we have to look at it from this angle. Let us look at how many people that we actually targeted and how many who have registered. Secondly, we also have to look at it in the sense that we have a very tight timetable which we have to do the exhibition.
We also have to work on the registers.. we are running a very tight timetable which if we are not careful we may be behind time.”
Adopt continuous registration processes
He further advised failed applicants to make use of the continuous registration processes at the District offices of the EC.
“In relation to applicants who were not able to get their names on the list, we have an opportunity for those applicants in the sense that we have what we call the continuous registration and we have given the modalities of the continuous registration to political parties to have a look at it so we agree on it.
So when we agree on the modalities today, we can start the continuous registration tomorrow at the district offices of the
commission.”
SOURCE; CITIFMONLINE
follows demands by some political parties, student bodies, and individuals for it to extend the period to allow more people to register. The Commission prior to the exercise said it was targeting about 1.2 million new voters. It says only about 8 percent of people were unable to register. “If you look at the analysis by the statistical service, we were trying to achieve a target of 1.2 million that is the register-able population. Fortunately at the end of the exercise, the figures that we had from the three regions indicate that we have 1, 105,686 which represents about 92% so our targets have really been achieved,” the Director of Electoral Services, Samuel Tetteh explained.
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