Cape Coast-Ghana, Oct. 5, GNA – The Electoral Commission (EC) registered 85,152 eligible voters in the just-ended limited voter registration exercise in the Central Region.
Of the number, 43,569, representing 51.17 per cent, were males whilst 41,583, making 48.83 per cent, were females.
In all, 46,033 eligible voters were registered through the guarantor system, 39,024 used Ghana cards, 95 used Ghana passports, and 178 were people with disability.
Eligible registrants between ages 18 and 20 constituted the highest record numbers of 74,708, comprising 38,052 males and 36,656 females, followed by those aged 21 to 65 years, representing 10,213, including 4,826 females.
The aged, 66 years and above, were 229 with 101 females.
Mr Manu Sakyi, the Deputy Regional Director of EC, told the Ghana News Agency that some 543 registrants who opted for the guarantor system were challenged mainly on age authenticity.
However, the Commission hoped to deal with all challenged cases by Friday, October 6, through the district committees made up of eminent personalities and institutional representatives.
He gave the assurance that the EC would monitor and take a post-registration action in accordance with the law in order not to disenfranchise any eligible Ghanaian.
The EC began a 21-day exercise from Tuesday, September 12 to Monday, October 2, at its district offices nationwide from 0800 hours to 1700 hours each day, including weekends.
The exercise was to capture people who turned 18 years since the last registration in 2020 as well as other eligible voters who had not previously registered with the EC.
Registration was done online using the District Management System (DMS), as well as offline by way of the Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) kit.
Though Mr Sakyi could not immediately provide district figures for the exercise, he was elated the registration was successful with maximum cooperation from all stakeholders, particularly political parties, who monitored the process to its logical conclusion.
Challenges encountered in the early days of the registration exercise were quickly resolved, some of which were disruptions in the internet, fluctuations in power, and breakdown of kits, he said.
The online system intermittently suffered breakdown in some areas but was addressed with the addition of the offline data capturing backups.
Mr Sackey mentioned occasional misapprehensions amongst political parties, essentially the New Patriotic Party and the National Democratic Congress, but that did not blight the exercise.
Another exercise began on Tuesday, October 3, to Monday, October 9, at all EC district offices for vote transfer and replacement of ID cards.
