Voter re-registration exercise would not be extended - EC

The Electoral Commission has explained that the voter re-registration exercise would not be extended so as to enable those whose names have been deleted to be re-registered.

According to the commission, it was not expecting that all 56,772 persons whose names have been deleted because they used the NHIS card to initially register to come forward.

The 10-day window for the exercise came to an end on Thursday July 29 amidst appeals to the EC to extend the period for the re-registration exercise.

At a press conference in Accra on Friday, the Head of Communications at the EC, Mr Eric Dzakpasu said a total of 22,107 have successfully re-registered.

“As of close of work on Wednesday out of the 56,772 names deleted, 22,107 had been re-registered. We agree without any shade of doubt that the total number re-registered was low, however we were not expecting all the 56,772 deleted persons to turn up for re-registration. It has been four years since they registered, chances are that a good number of them may no longer have been with us and others may have their own reasons why they will not want to re-register.

“The obvious turn out for this exercise cannot be blamed on low publicity and inadequate public education. As you may recall, the last limited voter registration exercise lasted for 10 days just like the re-registration exercise and at the end as many as over one million Ghanaians turned up to register. This means an average of 100,000 people registered daily therefore 10days was more than enough for only 56,772 people”.

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