More than 5, 800 centres open for EC’s exhibition exercise in Ashanti Region

Some 5, 890 centres in the Ashanti Region have opened for the ongoing voter register exhibition exercise, Mr Benjamin Bano-Bio, Regional Director of the Electoral Commission (EC), has announced.

Of the number, 884 centres, representing about 15 per cent would use the biometric verification devices for identification such as facial recognition, amongst others.

Mr Bano-Bio, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Kumasi, on the sidelines of the ongoing exercise, said the biometric devices were being tested on a pilot basis to enable the EC to fine-tune them for December elections.

The exhibition comes in the wake of the recent voter registration exercise and is to enable registered voters to check their details and ensure that the necessary corrections and omissions were effected before the register is certified.

It aims to clear the provisional register of double registration and other unlawful entries that could dent the credibility of the certified register.

“The voters register as it stands is provisional,” Mr Bano-Bio noted.

Therefore, the exhibition scheduled for September 18-25, according to the EC Regional Director, was instrumental in the electoral processes to foster credible, fair and transparent elections.

He asked voters to strive to check and verify their data, particularly those relating to one’s name and other details for the necessary corrections to be made where necessary ahead of the December 7 elections.

“No qualified voter should be left out of this important exercise,” Mr Bano-Bio advised.

The majority of exhibition centres in Kumasi visited by the GNA on Friday, September 18, the first day of the exhibition, witnessed low patronage as few people had queued for the exercise.

Places like the Oforikrom, Subin, Nhyiaeso and Manhyia South Constituencies had not recorded encouraging turn-out as some of the centres were virtually deserted as of 1600 hours.

Mr Bano-Bio said the Commission had made it easy for individuals to check their names both at their registered polling centres and on their cell phones.

Consequently, the EC had deployed a Mobile Telephoning System to allow prospective voters to access their detail by simply texting his or her Voters’ ID Number to 1422.

With this simple process, a voter could obtain some vital details in respect of one’s name, Voter ID Number, age, gender, polling station code, polling station name, district and region, according to the EC Regional Director.