EC official expresses satisfaction of registration turn out

Eric Okyere, the District Electoral Officer of Ashiedu Keteke electoral district in the Odododiodoo constituency, has expressed his satisfaction over the turn- out of applicants for the limited voter registration.

He said despite today being the first of the 21-day registration period, he was amazed by the number of people who had trooped in to the district as first-time applicants to register.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Mr Okyere said the exercise took off at the proposed time but had since been brought to a halt as a result of an online technical challenge encountered in the early hours of the process.

“I think I am impressed with the turn out, especially with today being the first day of the 21 days the process is supposed to last. We hope that by the close of the day, we will be able to register all those who have turned up here to serve as an encouragement for others who are yet to come.”

“We have been able to register four applicants as at 10:04 hours. We had technical challenge with the online process. We are supposed to use a buck system, which is the Biometric Voter Register, and it is currently being worked on by our technicians and as soon as it is complete, the process will restart,” he said.

He said the process had been smooth so far, devoid of any security threats and encouraged applicants to ensure that peace continued to reign.

“The applicants have been calm and have comported themselves so far. We have informed them, including the party agents about the challenge we are having with the network and have assured them that once it is resolved, the process will restart”, he said.

“We will encourage all applicants to exercise patience during this process and we assure them that they will be registered and issued their voters’ ID cards,” he added.

He also urged voters who may have lost their voters’ identification cards to exercise patience as the Electoral Commission rolled up plans for the replacement of such cards immediately after the registration of the new applicants.