ELECTORAL COMMISSION BRIEFS PARLIAMENT
The Chairperson of the electoral commission, Mrs Jean Mensah appeared before Parliament to brief members on several activities which have been carried so far and also yet to be done in making sure the December 7 general elections are conducted successfully.
She revealed that some of the activities carried so far are as follows:
She said, 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."she lamented.
According to her, the EC would continue to use the indelible ink for the 2024 elections.
The filing fees for 2020 would be maintained for this year's election as well
She added that Gh100,000 charge for presidential candidates and GH 10,000 charge for parliamentary candidates.
Mrs Jean Mensah emphatically stated that the EC would waive 25 per cent 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 the 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
She said that from 7 May to 29 May, 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 the slow network they experience for the first 2 days of the exercise.
She 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 centres or 800 other locations made up of 775 difficult to access electoral areas and 25 public universities
She explained that at the end of the 23-day exercise, a total of 778,447 new voters exceeded the original target of the EC 622,000
Out of the total 778,447 persons registered, 63.68 per cent used the GUARANTOR system, 36.28 per cent used the GHANA CARD, and finally, 0.34 used Passport to provide their citizenship and age.
The total number of females registered 408,332 constituting 52.45 per cent
Total male voters amounted to 370,115, constituting 47.55 per cent of total registered people for 2024 registration exercise.
Report by: PKB
