The Electoral Commission(EC) of Ghana has denied claims that it promised to register over 1.3 million persons at the just-ended limited voter registration exercise.
The limited voter registration exercise commenced on September 12, 2023, and ended on October 2, 2023.
According to some reports, the Electoral Commission had a target of registering 1.35 million Ghanaians who have turned 18 years and above and other eligible persons who could not register in 2020.
At the end of the exercise, the Commission was able to register 910,996 new voters.
Speaking at a Press conference in Accra on Tuesday, October 17, 2023, following the completion of the exercise, the Deputy Commissioner in charge of Operations at the EC, Mr Samuel Tettey, noted that the Commission rather
had a target of registering 52 percent of the 1.35 million but at the end of the exercise, it had exceeded its target, thereby registering 910,996 new voters.
“The Statistical Service projected 450,000 (Four Hundred and Fifty Thousand) persons turning 18 years each year for the years 2021, 2022, and 2023. We did not state that we were going to register 1,350,000 applicants. It is not possible to register every single person who turned 18 for the period 2021 to 2023,” He said.
He explained further that, “We projected 52 percent of the registrable population of 1,350,000 voters which is 700,000, so we never said it anywhere that we were going to register 1,350,000 registrable people.”
Mr Samuel Tettey added that people abstain from voting for various reasons among other things; religious reasons/ belief, apathy, etc., and hence not all the registrable voters of 1,350,000 will register.
Before the commencement of the exercise, there were disagreements over the use of the district offices of the EC for the exercise.
Some political parties had even gone to court to stop the EC from undertaking the exercise until the parties and the EC had reached an agreement.
Also reacting to this, Mr Samuel Tettey again stated that the EC never stated anywhere that parliament was to be blamed for not approving its 2023 budget, hence, its decision to do the registration at the district offices.
“In our previous engagement with the media, the EC stated that the 2023 Work Plan and Budget was based on a Continuous voter registration exercise in our District Offices. We indicated that we did not factor the registration of voters on an Electoral Area basis in our approved 2023 Budget and Work Plan.
The EC has not stated anywhere that Parliament is to be blamed for not approving its budget hence its decision to register voters at the District Offices. The EC stated that it prepared a draft C.I. for a Continuous Registration exercise in all its district offices nationwide and had the C.I. passed the EC would have had some six (6) months to register voters at a time of their choice,” he explained.
