The Electoral Commission (EC) has successfully registered 1,990 people in the two-day pilot of the Biometric Voter Registration system conducted in all the 16 regional capitals across the country.
The Western Region had the highest number of registered applicants of 73 on the first day of the pilot and at the end of the two-day exercise, a total of 1,990 applicants have been registered.
The Commission indicated that 745 applicants registered during day one of the exercise while 1,245 registered on day two.
On the second day, the Volta Region and Ahafo Region had the highest number of applicants registered with 105 each.
The region with the lowest applicants registered was North East with 51.
Using the expected improved performance on the second day, the average number of registrants registered per day was 83 registrants.
The EC noted this metric is expected to only get better adding, “We are to register over 100 registered applicants per kit per day, as was attained by some regions during the pilot.”
The Commission indicated that at that level of performance and with the continued enthusiastic participation of the Ghanaian public, it is confident of registering some 13 million-plus applicants within the first 21 days of the mass registration exercise.
The essence of the exercise was to evaluate the preparedness of the Commission for the upcoming Voter Registration Exercise.
Amongst the metrics that were tested were the efficiency of the Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) kits and its adaptability to various operating conditions in various parts of the country.
The Commission also took the opportunity to evaluate the various mitigation measures it has put in place to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 disease during the registration period.
Political Party representatives were present at each of the centres to observe the exercise.
The Exercise went on smoothly at all the designated centres, except in the Western region where the BVR Kit developed a fault on the second day.
This led to the suspension of the Exercise in the Western region but afforded the Commission the opportunity to test its inbuilt processes of dealing with equipment breakdowns during the registration process.
The lessons learnt from this investigation will further improve the Commission’s response to such occurrences.
The Commission expressed satisfaction with the exercise and indicated it will use the lessons learnt to improve upon the conduct of the impending Voter Registration Exercise.
“The Commission is appreciative of the genuine interest and enthusiasm showed by the general public and political parties to make this pilot a success,” it said.
The table below shows the breakdown of registered applicants by region.
- REGION NUMBER OF REGISTERED VOTERS
1 BONO 141
2 SAVANNAH 128
3 AHAFO 189
4 CENTRAL 141
5 UPPER WEST 115
6 NOTHERN 154
7 NORTH EAST 103
8 VOLTA 141
9 UPPER EAST 125
10 ASHANTI 166
11 EASTERN 128
12 WESTERN 73
13 OTI 103
14 WESTERN NORTH 100
15 GREATER ACCRA 98
16 BONO EAST 85
TOTAL 1990
