The Electoral Commission (EC) has recorded some duplication of voter ID numbers during the registration process earlier on October 1.
In a statement issued by the Commission, it revealed that it is a mistake and as such “this error has been corrected.”
“It has come to the attention of the Commission that a number of Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) kits at some Registration Centres have issued Applicants with Voter ID numbers that have already been issued”.
In light of this development, it further noted that “affected applicants will be contacted and issued with new ID cards with unique numbers”.
“It is important to note that, the biometric and biographic details of the affected Applicants are intact”.
The electoral roll was opened from 7 am to 6 pm at its district offices for persons who could not participate in the mass registration exercise organised in June and July.
Some of the people who participated are voters who were outside the country due to COVID-19 restrictions, those who were under a 14-day mandatory quarantine and could not take part in the mass voter registration, and eligible voters who were duly issued voter ID cards but whose names are missing from the register under exhibition.
Persons who recently turned 18 were also similarly given the opportunity to register.
Meanwhile, the Electoral Commission (EC) in Tamale has expressed disbelief over the overpowering number of eligible voters who turned out to register during the EC’s one-day voter registration exercise.
At the Tamale district office of the EC, hundreds of eligible voters had queued to register for the voter ID card.
However, report has it that as at about 9:30am only 28 people had registered to vote.
Speaking in an interview, the District EC boss, Bismarck Nteh, said the office has made provision for two machines to hasten the registration process.
In spite of this, the district EC boss stated that the commission started the registration process late because of “a problem with coding our kit.”
“We are surprised that we have such a huge number this morning. We were not expecting such a huge number in Tamale this morning. At the time of the major registration, we thought we had registered almost all the people but to come and see such a huge number, I was surprised.”
There have been general complaints about the slow pace of the process.
Replication of this was rife in the Ashaiman District where the registration process was initially marred by a two-hour delay.
The situation was no different in the Ashanti Region, where a score of persons within the Asawase constituency who visited the Asokore Mampong Municipal EC office protested the painfully slow pace of the process.
Reacting to these concerns, questions were raised by the leadership of the National Democratic Congress in the Asawase Constituency over the preparedness of the EC in carrying out the exercise.
Mugis Mahdi, the NDC Constituency Secretary for Asawase called for an extension of the registration process to cater for the outstanding number of registrants.
“We are calling on the Electoral Commission at least increase the days because looking at the people in the queue and looking at how the registration process is going on, we can’t register all these people by the close of the day”.
