Voter registration: Greater Accra, Volta region top challenged cases

The Greater Accra and the Volta regions have recorded the highest number of challenged cases, after the first two phases of the ongoing voters' registration exercise ended on Saturday, data by the Electoral Commission (EC) has shown.

The two regions witnessed a combined total of 2,451 applicants’ participation in the registration questioned, out of 8,158 challenged cases recorded in all 16 regions.

Again, the two were the only regions to have seen more than 1,000 prospective voters have their application confronted with issues in the 12 days exercise.

The Greater Accra had as many as 1,391 applicants challenged, with 1,060 applicants being challenged in the Volta Region, representing 17 and 13 per cent respectively.

Closely followed was the Ashanti Region which recorded 929 of the total confronted applications, while the Northern Region had 753 cases.

Similarly, the Central Region had 746 applicants’ participation in the registration exercise questioned, with the Eastern Region recording 627 of such cases.

The number of prospective voters who had their application challenged in the Bono East and Oti regions were 426 and 421 respectively.

The Ahafo Region had 365 challenged cases, Western North 328 and Western 324 cases each.

In the Bono Region, there were 239 cases, with the Savannah Region recording196 challenged cases.

The rest were Upper East 147, Upper West 147 and North East 93.

Meanwhile, a Deputy Chairman of the EC in charge of Corporate Affairs, Dr Eric Bossman Asare has explained that most of the challenged cases are being witnessed in the country’s border regions.

“You can see clearly that, the regions that are border regions; Oti, Volta and the Ahafo region, the number is very high,” Dr Bossman Asare noted.

Earlier, a Deputy Chairman of the Commission in charge of Operations, Mr Samuel Tettey said the Commission had stated that a District Registration Review Committee had been set up to deal with the challenged issues across the country.

“The District Registration Review Committees were sitting on the cases to determine whether they should be upheld or withdrawn,” he said.