Mop-up Voters Registration Begins in August

The Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana will undertake a mop-up voters registration exercise next week after the first in May.

This was announced to parliament by the Chairperson of the Commission, Jean Mensah during an appearance on July 25, 2024.

It will begin on August 1 and end on August 3, she said.

She explained that this will afford persons who turned 18 years after the last registration exercise the opportunity to register and subsequently exercise their franchise.

“We intend to undertake a mop-up Voters Registration Exercise in the first three days of August, that is from the 1st to the 3rd of August 2024 to allow persons who turned 18 after the May 29th Voters Registration Exercise to register to vote.”

The exercise will take place in all our district offices across the country including the newly created Guan district.

She also said it would be extended to all Prison Centres.

“We are working closely with Ghana Prison Service and we have obtained good details from them on the number of inmates in all the Prison Centres across the country,” she added.

Recruitment
In terms of recruitment of temporary staff, the EC said it has been completed with close to 210,000 temporary officials enrolled.

They include the verification Officers, Name Reference Officers, among others.

These officers have their identity uploaded onto a database for easy identification, the first time in the country’s history, the EC Chair said.

“We can now identify each temporary staff by their names, photographs, their voter’s card, their Ghana Card and their residential addresses. All these details have been factored into our database.”

They will also be taken through in-depth training to ensure that they operate and carry out their mandate as expected of them, Mrs Jean noted.

Security
Security-wise, she said her outfit had collaborated with the needed security agencies to assure voters of the needed safety.

“In the area of security and safety of our voters and our properties, we continue to collaborate with the National Elections Security Taskforce under the leadership of the Inspector General of Police to ensure the security of all citizens at all our centres nationwide.”

Meanwhile, he noted that the Commission is not legally mandated to ensure the safety of voters as misconstrued.

“It is important to note that while we are engaged under the platform of the election security taskforce at all levels, the Electoral Commission is not responsible for security….This is the mandate of the security agencies.”

The country will, on December 7, 2024, go to the polls to elect a President and Members of Parliament.