The Electoral Commission of Ghana has set April, 18, 2020 as the day to begin the compilation of the new voters’ register.
This comes in the face of an ongoing debate among political parties and some Civil Society Organizations who are either for or against the compilation of a new register.
According to reports from Graphic.com.gh, Mr. Samuel Tettey, deputy chair person of the commission in charge of operations revealed that the exercise is to end by May 30th. This will be followed by a voters’ register exhibition from August 15 to August 28, 2020.
According to Mr. Tettey, the commission would deploy 8,000 registration devices to cover the 32,000 polling stations across the country. The plan he said, is to use the cluster registration format where per the EC’s arrangements, 4 polling stations will form a cluster and register at one place. After the 43 days period, there will be a five-day mopping up period to take care of any exigencies.
He went on to say that apart from first time registrants whose bio-data such as name, age and name of parents will be collected, that of those who have already registered will not be collected as the commission already has their bio-data. However such persons who have already registered can make changes to this information if they wish to after they have been able to provide evidence.
Adding his voice to the discussion, the deputy commissioner in charge of corporate services, Dr. Asare Bossman said the EC intended to finish with the tendering processes and the award of contract within a week or two. But before then, he said, the Eminent Advisory Committee of the EC would engage all political parties, civil society organisations (CSOs) and the EC to put the stakeholders on the same page. That meeting, he said, would take place in the coming week, indicating that the processes were ongoing to explain to the stakeholders why a new voters register was essential for the 2020 general election.
