News:
July 19, 2024
Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Mrs. Jean Mensah appeared before Parliament on Friday, July 19, 2024, to brief members on several activities which have been carried out so far and yet to be done in making sure the December 7, 2024, general elections are conducted successfully.
She revealed some of the activities carried so far as follows:
• No new C.I would be laid before Parliament ahead of 2024 elections and as such the commission would rely on the current registration C.I (C.I 91) to conduct the voter registration exercise and also rely on current election C.I (C.I 127) to undertake the 2024 general elections.
• The proposal of pushing the election date forward to November would not be implemented in 2024 but rather consult the Attorney General on it for its implementation by 2028.
• In addition, the EC would continue to use the indelible ink for the 2024 elections.
• filing fees for 2020 would be maintained for this election as well; Gh100,000 charge for Presidential candidates and GH 10,000 charge for Parliamentary candidates.
• EC would waive 25 percent of the filing fees for women and persons with disability to help increase the number of women and disability in our elections.
• The EC would waive the filing fees for the media accreditation fees to help the media fill more of their personnel to serve as election observers.
ON ELECTION CALENDAR:
The EC said the elections’ calendar has been discussed extensively at the Inter Party Advisory Committee meeting (IPAC) and has received the inputs of the political parties and indeed the feedback from the parties has been fed into the final plan for the 2024 elections on May 7 to May 29; the revision of the voter register was conducted.
The commission extended voter registration exercise for 2 days due to feedback received from the political parties due to slow network they experienced for the first 2 days of the exercise.
And explained that, the registration exercise was carried in all their 268 District Offices across the country including Guan District in addition to 800 difficult to reach centers or 800 other locations made up of 775 difficult to access electoral areas and 25 public universities.
At the end of the 23-days exercise, a total of 778,447 new voters which exceeded the original target of the EC 622,000 were recorded.
Out of the total 778,447 persons registered, 63.68 percent used the GUARANTOR system, 36.28 percent used the GHANA CARD and finally, 0.34 used Passport to provide their citizenship and age.
Total number of females registered 408,332 constituting 52.45 percent; total male voters amounted to 370,115 constituting 47.55 percent of total registered people for 2024 registration exercise.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com