Special Voting: 80% turnout our expectation – EC

Ghana’s Electoral Commission says the general voter turnout for the early voting exercise in the 2016 elections met its expectations despite facing challenges.

Challenges in the December 1 exercise where several members of the security agencies were turned away after showing up to cast their ballots due to the non-inclusion of their details on the special voter roll forced the electoral management body to open another window for the security personnel to exercise their franchise on last Sunday.

Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Charlotte Osei however clarified that majority of the factors that caused the challenges were not from their end.

“Over the last few days, there were complaints from security personnel about their inability to locate their names on the special voting lists. It is important to clarify that special voting is for staff of the Electoral Commission, security agencies or journalists who are to be deployed outside their usual places of residence on election day. Special voting is not for all officers of the security agencies, or electoral officers or journalists.

Accordingly, the EC works with the list provided by the institutions,” she explained.

A combined 101,014 eligible voters representing 79.29% of an expected 127, 396 turned up at the end of the 2016 elections’ early voting exercise. This, the EC boss said was in line with the target set by her outfit.

“We are happy to announce that there was an 80% turnout in the Special Voting on December 1 and 4. This is consistent with the turn out numbers we are expecting in this year’s election,” Charlotte Osei stated.

The main elections come off on Wednesday December 7, 2016 from 7am.

Follow the EIB Network’s coverage of the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections on GHOne TV, Starr FM, Kasapa FM, Ultimate FM, Abusua FM, Empire FM via all our various online platforms as well as our affiliate stations across the country.

GHOne TV’s coverage begins at 5am on voting day.