Some 30,462 voters who were captured in the recently-ended voter registration exercise have had their eligibility challenged, the Electoral Commission of Ghana has said.

At a press conference on Friday, 7 August 2020, Deputy Chair of the EC, Dr Eric Bossman Asare, said one of the ways to guarantee the credibility of the voter register is the ‘challenge process’ embedded in the registration exercise and captured in C.I.91 (Regulation 18(1)”.

He said: “Although this is working well, we have heard of instances where agents of political parties intentionally abuse the process by challenging people in the strongholds of their opponents”.

“Democracy thrives when all qualified applicants are given the opportunity to take part in the political process. Parties should educate their agents to avoid preventing persons who are otherwise qualified to register and vote from doing so”.

Regional breakdown

Western – 1,065

Western-North – 1,317

Central – 3,454

Greater Accra – 5,302

Volta – 3,290

Oti – 1,715

Eastern – 1,766

Ashanti – 3,922

Bono – 1,984

Ahafo – 1,155

Bono East – 1,134

Savanna – 796

Northern – 2,169

North East – 228

Upper East – 919

Upper West – 246

National – 30,462

Dr Asare said is clear that Greater Accra’s 5,302 followed by Ashanti’s 3,922 lead the pack in nominal terms.

“However, in real terms (when the numbers are adjusted for the total registered per region) the leading regions with most challenged cases are Oti at 0.49%, Ahafo at 0.37%, Volta at 0.36%, Bono at 0.31%, Western North at 0.29%, and Savanna at 0.29%”, he explained.

“Interestingly, all these are border regions except Ahafo and Bono East”, he observed, adding: “This should suggest that most of the challenges would be emanating from the citizenships of the applicants”.

“Also, the residential and age statuses of applicants certainly must feature prominently in these challenges”.