No names deleted from voter register in three districts

VoterregisterThree districts in the Central Region are not taking part in the Electoral Commission’s nationwide re-registration of persons who registered with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) card in 2012.

This is because the Electoral Commission (EC) did not find any of the registered voters in those districts to have used the NHIS card to register in the 2012 registration exercise, Mrs Philomena Edusei, the Regional Director of the EC, has said.

The districts are Twifo Atti-Morkwa, Abura Asebu Kwamankese and Asikuma Odoben Brakwa.

In 2012, Twifo Atti-Morkwa had 5,093 registered voters, Abura Asebu Kwamankese had 59,615 and Asikuma Odoben Brakwa had 59,292.

The EC was on Thursday, May 5, ordered by the Supreme Court to expunge from the current voters’ register the names of all persons who registered and voted in the 2012 elections with the NHIS card as proof of identity.

In the same ruling, the Commission was ordered to take steps to re-register the persons whose names would be deleted by ensuring that they use the authorised process to get their names back onto the electoral roll.

In compliance with the directive, the EC last week announced it had deleted 56,772 names of such persons and scheduled to re-register the affected persons to begin on Monday, July 18 to Thursday, July 28.

Mrs Edusei said a total of 14,789 out of 1,231,513 registered voters in the Central Region were affected by the exercise.

She said voters in the Efutu Municipality were the most affected with 5,267 NHIS registrants while Hemang Lower Denkyira was the least affected district with only seven.

The affected persons are to do the re-registration at the district offices of the EC in the areas where they registered.

Affected persons would be required to present their existing Voter ID cards, driving license, and passport or show proof of citizenship.

They would only be registered on providing proof of citizenship, age and proof of being of sound mind in accordance with the requirements of the law.

As of 1130 hours when the Ghana News Agency (GNA) visited the Cape Coast Metropolitan Office of the EC on Monday, being the first day of re-registration, only five out of 1,046 persons whose names were deleted from the register had come in an attempt to re-register but without identity cards.

Mr Richard Asenso, the Cape Coast Metropolitan Electoral Officer, attributed the low turn out to the fact that it was the first day and expressed the hope that the number would improve in the coming days.

He urged the affected voters not to panic and encouraged them to come out to do the re-registration to enable them to vote in the upcoming election.

The Electoral Commission is also exhibiting the voters’ register from Monday July 18 to Sunday August 7 to enable voters to check their information and make corrections when necessary.

Eligible voters in the Central Region are expected to confirm their names and other particulars on the register in 2,480 exhibition centres with 183 of them in the Cape Coast Metropolis.

Turn out at some voter exhibition centres visited by the GNA in the Cape Coast Metropolis was low.

At the Castle “A” exhibition centre, only 25 out of 861 registered voters had come to check their names while 21 out of 621 registered voters at the Castle “B” exhibition centre had come to verify if their names were in the register.

Source: GNA

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