EC apologises to traumatised 18-year-old wrongly arrested at New Juaben South

The Electoral Commission (EC) district office at New Juaben South municipality in the Eastern Region has apologised to a parent and his 18-year-old son, who was wrongly arrested on Saturday over allegations of double registration.

The parent, Nana Yaw Boateng, revealed that his son and daughter, who were 14 and 12 years old, respectively, were unlawfully registered in 2020 against their will by unknown political actors allegedly associated with the ruling party.

Consequently, Mr Boateng wrote a letter to the Electoral Commission (EC) to officially request the removal of his children’s names from the electoral register.

“I humbly submit this letter to your good office to plead with your highly esteemed office to delete the names Boateng Kwakye Martin, age 14 years with Voter ID Card No. 2588022436, and Boateng Akosua Pomaa, age 12 years with Voter ID Card No. 2588022035 who are minors but were registered with false information by unknown persons from the electoral register. Please find attached a copy of a supporting affidavit sworn by my humble self. Counting on your usual co-operation,” a copy of the letter stated.

Despite formal requests for their names to be removed from the register in 2020, the son’s name remained, leading to his arrest for double registration during the ongoing voter registration exercise.

The Municipal Director of the EC, Kofi Asante Owusu, clarified on Monday during a closed-door meeting that although the names of the two minors were removed from the voter register at the constituency level in response to a petition by the parent, they were not deleted from the database at the headquarters, hence the unfortunate incident.

“The incident has traumatised my son, which is no fault of his,” expressed Mr Boateng, the aggrieved parent.

The young victim, however, has decided not to register again and has returned to school.

The EC commenced its limited voter registration exercise targeting first-time voters and those seeking to obtain a voter card.

Chairperson Madam Jean Mensa stated that the exercise aims to register approximately 623,000 first-time voters nationwide.

However, challenges with online registration prompted the EC to announce the commencement of offline voter registration on May 9, 2024. Despite the shift to offline registration, there are persistent delays and long queues at registration centres, leading to incomplete registrations before the end of the day.