EC Refuses To Extend Voters Registration Exercise

The Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana has rejected calls for the voters registration exercise to be extended following an end to the exercise on Monday, October 2, 2023.

Although the exercise officially ended yesterday, prospective registrants who were found in queue by 5 pm on the last day will be afforded the opportunity to register on Tuesday, October 3, 2023.

“The public is informed that the Commission will not extend the Voters Registration Exercise. The Commission, however, assures the General Public that arrangements have been made to ensure that eligible citizens who are in the queue on or before 5:00pm today, are registered tomorrow, Tuesday, the 3rd of October, 2023.

“This arrangement will be extended only to eligible applicants in the queue at 5:00pm today, Monday, the 2nd of October, 2023,” the Commission said in a statement on Monday.

This is in spite of calls for the exercise to be extended following long queues at registration centres.

A deputy General Secretary of the NDC, Mustapha Gbande, earlier urged the EC to ensure all eligible applicants are registered before the exercise ends.

“If you go to some centres, there are people who have been there in the last four days trying to register, and they have taken care of their own feeding and accommodation and one would expect that the EC would have a space for these people to be registered at least before the exercise comes to an end. So we expect that there should be places where they bring in more machines and workforce to ensure that they finish the people in the queue without having to send them back home,” CNR quotes him as saying.

“If you go to a place like Asuogyaman, people have been in queues in the last four days, and the arrangements they have there is that you come and write your name and when it is time, then you come and register and so all these people assume that they are in a queue.”

The exercise began on September 12, 2023.