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16.06.2012 General News

13,628,817 Voters Registered - EC

By Emmanuel Adu-Gyamera - Daily Graphic
13,628,817 Voters Registered - EC
16.06.2012 LISTEN

The Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC), Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, says about one million voters registered during the biometric voters registration exercise were inadvertently not given polling stations by registration officials.

To overcome the challenge, he said, the EC had recalled all the registration equipment to verify them in order to know the polling stations of such voters.

Dr Afari-Gyan made this known when he appeared before Parliament Friday to brief the house on the just-ended biometric voters registration exercise.

The meeting was held behind close doors, but a source in Parliament told the Daily Graphic that Dr Afari-Gyan indicated that more than 12 million voters were registered during the exercise.

According to the source, the briefing centred on some of the challenges which were encountered by the EC during the 40-day exercise.

It said Dr Afari-Gyan indicated that the breakdown of some equipment and human error were some of the challenges which were encountered by the EC during the conduct of the exercise.

It said Dr Afari-Gyan told the House that even though the exercise recorded more than 12 million voters, there were about one million names to which the officials did not give codes, for which reason it would be very difficult to assign them polling stations.

That was why the EC had to recall all the equipment and verify in order to know the polling stations of those names.

The source said Dr Afari-Gyan also reiterated the EC’s intention to create an additional 45 constituencies before the December general election.

It said the EC boss, however, failed to name the constituencies, even though he mentioned the number of constituencies to be created in each region.

It said Dr Afari-Gyan indicated that even though the EC was faced with some legal challenges, it was determined to ensure that prospective candidates took part in the December general election and took their seats in the next Parliament.

The EC is yet to come out with the number of voters registered in the 40-day exercise.

Before the registration exercise took off from March 24, 2012 to May 5, 2012, the commission had projected to register 13 million voters.

However, according to a source at the commission, as of Friday, May 4, 2012, about 12.75 million voters had been registered.

This number excludes voters who were registered on Saturday May 5, the last day of the exercise.

At the end of the third phase of the exercise, the EC had detected 8,121 cases of multiple registration involving 2,864 individuals, with the highest number emerging from the Ashanti Region.

The Electoral Commission (EC) undertook a mop-up exercise at 187 centres in eight regions between June 9 and 10, 2012.

According to the source, the commission was finalising the figures to be able to officially come out with the specific number of Ghanaians who registered.

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