EC begins mop-up registration

The Electoral Commission’s (EC) mop-up voter registration exercise begins today, August 1 to Saturday, August 2024.

The three-day exercise is to give opportunity to persons who turned 18 years after the recent limited voter registration and those who could not register previously to have their names captured in the voters register.

The EC is targeting between 50,000 to 70,000 new voters onto the electoral roll. It will take place at the EC’s 268 district offices, 26 Public Universities and 41 Prison centres across the country. 

Context

The EC undertook a limited voter registration exercise from May 7 to 29, 2024. At the end of the 23-day exercise, the EC captured a total of 778,447 voters onto the register, comprising 408,332 females, representing 52.45 per cent and 370,115 males, representing 47.55 per cent.  

Currently, the EC has a total of 18, 681,366 provisional registered voters.  

Modalities

The EC has also engaged the services of Mobile Telecommunication Network (MTN) to ensure stable Internet connectivity during the exercise as the registration would be conducted online..

An eligible applicant must present a Ghana Card or the Ghana Passport as proof of eligibility at the designated registration centre and in the absence of any of the documents, an applicant would require two persons who were already registered voters as guarantors.  

The EC stated that guarantors could only guarantee for 10 voters, pointing out that “those who guaranteed for 10 voters during the limited exercise cannot guarantee for another voter during the mop-up exercise.”

He said that was in accordance with Regulation 2 of CI 91 as amended by CI 126. During the three-day exercise, political parties were permitted to send their agents to the registration centres to observe the exercise.

The EC also advised the parties to educate their agents to conduct themselves professionally to ensure an incident-free exercise. It also urged parents and guardians not to allow their children who are not yet 18 years old to take part in the Mop-Up Voter Registration Exercise.

The registration centres will open at 7a.m. and end at 6p.m. on each day.

Source: Graphic Online