Western Region registers over 1,180,000 new voters

The Electoral Commission (EC) in the Western Region has registered 1,185,315 people in the compilation of the new voters register falling short of the 1.2 million target.

Out of the registered number, 599,658 are males and 585,657 females while the number of persons with disability stood at 3,655.

At the end of the six-phase registration exercise, 878,061 used their Ghana cards to register while those with passports were 9,557.

About 1,248 people have been challenged and 297,697 registrants registered through guarantors.

Mrs. Angelina Tagoe, Western Regional Director of the Commission who disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency in an interview in Sekondi, indicated that the process was litigation free and generally good though their target was not met by the end of the exercise.

Touching on the number of those who were challenged, she pointed out that the Challenge Review Committee started their work during the exercise and would complete their work on Friday, August 14.

She attributed the deficit in the target to migration issues and noted that some residents may have travelled while others may have changed their location.

According to her, they were surprised at the number of people who turned up at the centres in the first phase and commended the Media, political parties, observers, and the general public for their support which culminated in a successful exercise.

Mrs Tagoe mentioned that all the preventive protocols to stem the spread of COVID-19 were observed accordingly such as wearing of nose masks at registration centres, usage of thermometer guns by EC officials, and provision of Veronica buckets, hand sanitizers, tissue papers, and liquid soaps.

She further enumerated that the machines were programmed to enable the political parties to keep track of the number of voters being registered each day at the various centres hence, no political party had issues with the process.