Koforidua, Aug. 21, GNA - The Electoral Commission (EC) has so far replaced 33,967 lost and damaged voter Identity (ID) Cards in the Eastern Region, Mr Paul Boateng, Eastern Regional Director of the EC said.

He said at the moment district electoral officers had been instructed to continue to receive applications for replacement of lost ID cards so that the Commission would process those applications. Mr Boateng was briefing a meeting of the Regional Co-ordinating Council (RCC), in Koforidua on Thursday, on the Commission's preparedness towards the December general elections. He said with the voter's registration over, Registration Review Committees (RRC) were being set up in each district to deal with recorded challenge cases during the registration exercise.

Mr Boateng said the RRC with their wide local representation had been assigned the task of dealing with voter's registration challenges, to promote the EC's resolve to produce a voters' register devoid of unqualified persons such as under-aged or non Ghanaians. The RRC comprised representatives of all political parties in the district concerned, district electoral officer as Secretary, the senior police officer of the district, district director of education and representative of the traditional authority of the district. He said on receipt of duly completed challenge forms, the RRC would examine the grounds on, which the challenge was being made and decide whether the applicant was qualified or not to be registered as a voter. "As part of the process to update the voters' register, the Commission will compile a provisional voters' register for each polling station."

"Each provisional register will contain the details of all qualified voters registered in 2004, 2006 as well as prospective voters whose application for registration were accepted during the just ended registration exercise".

Mr Boateng said the provisional register of voters for each registration centre would be displayed at exhibition centres throughout the region next month. He said a regional security task force made up of heads of security agencies in the region, the Regional Security Co-ordinator and the EC had been formed to take care of security matters before, during and after the election.

He said the Commission was in the process of compiling the list of volatile polling centres in the region for onward submission to the Police, for necessary action. Mr Boateng assured all that appropriate measures were being put in place to ensure free, fair, credible and transparent elections come December 7, 2008.