EC ends voters’ exhibition exercise today; scoop with exhibition officers and…(Video)
The voters’ exhibition exercise, which began on November 3, 2023, by the Electoral Commission, will end today, November 7, 2023.
The voters’ exhibition is one of the core mandates of the EC to pave the way for prospective voters to verify their details, including name, age, sex, and polling station, and to make requests for amendments or inclusions where necessary before the pending and national-level elections.
The exercise was held in all 38,622 polling stations across the country.
It has been ongoing over the past four days between 7:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. each day.
Exhibition Officers at the Ansa-Rudeen polling station in the Ablekuma North Constituency expressed worry in an interview with The Ghana Report on the first day of the exercise over the public’s apathy towards the exhibition exercise.
According to a check by The Ghana Report as of 3:28 p.m. on November 3, at Ansa-Rudeen polling station, only thirteen (13) prospective voters out of two hundred and eighty-seven (287) had reported to verify their details.
The news of low patronage for the exercise drew the attention of the EC to address the citizenry’s need to take a keen interest in the exhibition exercise.
The Chair of the Commission, Jean Mensa, further revealed that the low patronage of the face-to-face exercise could be because most of the prospective voters are making use of digitization to verify their details.
The shortcode the EC stated that prospective voters can use to verify their details is (*713*81#), at a cost of 60 Ghana pesewas.
Today being the climax of the exercise, The Ghana Report visited the Ansa-Rudeen and Fatimatu Bintu Rasul polling stations to find out whether today’s attendance has been encouraging as the exercise is coming to a close.
The exhibition officer at Fatimatu Bintu Rasul polling station noted that only ten prospective voters, comprising five males and five females, out of four hundred and twenty-two (422), have verified their details since the exercise started.
Some of the prospective voters we engaged revealed that they got to know about the exhibition exercise on the third day, but because they were occupied, they couldn’t verify their details on time.
They, however, appealed to the EC to extend the number of days coming in 2024 to enable everyone to check before the district-level election.
When they were asked whether they had heard about the shortcode for verifying the details, some said “yes” while others said “no”.
They also called on the EC to intensify the publicity of the exhibition exercise the next time it is held.
Meanwhile, the EC has announced that the district-level and unit committee elections will be held on Tuesday, December 19, 2023.