Huge turnout for one-day voter registration exercise overwhelms EC officials

A huge turnout of eligible voters for the one-day voter registration exercise in different parts of the country has taken the Electoral Commission by surprise.

According to reports, at the Tamale District Office of the EC for instance, hundreds of eligible voters were in a queue to register for the voter ID card.

Tamale District EC boss, Bismarck Nteh, told Citi FM that the office has made provision for two machines to quicken the registration process.

Mr. Nteh said 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,” he said.

He added: “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, according to numerous reports monitored by GhanaWeb.

In the Ashaiman District, the registration process suffered a two-hour delay and some of the registrants also lamented the delays.

In the Ashanti Region, several persons within the Asawase constituency who visited the Asokore Mampong Municipal EC office complained about the slow pace of the process, according to a Citi News report.

These concerns compelled the leadership of the National Democratic Congress in the Asawase Constituency to question the readiness of the EC to effectively carry out the exercise.

The opposition fears many applicants will not be able to register due to the slow nature of the process.

It has thus called for the exercise to be extended.

“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,” Mugis Mahdi, the NDC Constituency Secretary for Asawase said.

The EC opened the electoral roll from 7 am to 6 pm on Thursday, October 1, 2020, at its district offices for persons who could not participate in the mass registration exercise organised in June and July.