Voter Exhibition: Inadequate publicity contributing to low turnout - Exhibition officer

Gertrude Agyeiwaa, an Exhibition Officer at Anthony Educational Complex School Exhibition Centre, Kadjebi, says inadequate publicity on the ongoing Provisional Voter Register Exhibition exercise is a contributory factor to the low turnout.

She said that in the past, when the Electoral Commission (EC) used vans to create awareness of the exercise and the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) was well-resourced to educate the citizenry on the need to turn up for such exercises, the exercise recorded high patronage.

Agyeiwaa disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) during a visit to the Centre on Sunday, August 25.

The Centre, which had 423 registered voters, saw only 63 voters checking their particulars as of Saturday, August 24.

She said the use of social media outlets in sensitisation and verification of voters’ details also contributed to the low turnout.

Agyeiwaa, therefore, appealed to the government to resource the NCCE to enable it to create awareness of the exercise and subsequent activities.

She also urged registered voters to come to the exhibition centres in person to verify their details and correct any errors against their names.

She said their names could be misspelled, ages could be incorrect, and residential addresses could be wrong, among other issues.

The Exhibition Officer said they could only detect these errors and have them corrected if they came to the exhibition centres in person.

When the GNA visited the CMB Shade 1-Kadjebi 2 Exhibition Centre, out of 297 registered voters, only 66 voters had checked their particulars as of the close of work on August 24, while CMB Shade 1-Kadjebi 1 had 356 voters in the register with 65 checking as of August 24.

At Market Offices 1 Exhibition Centre, out of the 410 registered voters, 93 voters had verified their details as of August 24, while Market Offices 2 Exhibition Centre had 61 voters checking their particulars out of 361 registered voters in the Provisional Voter Register.

The seven-day national exercise, which commenced on Tuesday, August 20, would end on Tuesday, August 27, 2024.