Voter registration: We’ve standby generators to deal with ‘dumsor”- EC
The Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana has secured generators at all district capitals to curtail power outages, popularly known as ‘dumsor’, to ensure a smooth limited voter registration exercise which begins today, Tuesday, May 7, 2024.
Recently, Ghanaians have been experiencing unstable power supply in various parts of the country, so the EC has taken steps to ensure that it does not affect the important exercise ahead of the December polls.
Chairperson of the EC, Mrs Jean Mensa, made this known during a press briefing on Monday, May 6, 2024.
According to her, the election management body is making every effort to prevent disruptions caused by power challenges.
She explained that the commission has arranged for all district offices to rent generators to ensure a seamless exercise.
However, in the event of unforeseen circumstances, the EC has explained that its offices will switch to an “offline” mode, where voters will be registered manually, and their details will be saved on transferable storage devices.
“We have made arrangements to ensure that we don’t have challenges because of ‘dumsor’. We’ve had all our district offices rent generators so that in the event of ‘dumsor’, they can kick in.
“However, should there be the unexpected, we would switch on to the offline and by offline, it means the voters will be registered, and their details will be put on a pen drive that will be copied in our offices when the light returns, so the registration will not be disrupted.”
The upcoming limited voter registration exercise aims to register approximately 623,000 first-time voters nationwide.
The registration will take place in all 258 district offices of the commission and an additional 785 centres to accommodate those who may find it difficult to access the district offices.
A total of 3,277 personnel have been engaged for the 21-day exercise, which will end on May 27, 2024.
In view of that, the Ghana Education Service (GES) has authorised Senior High School (SHS) students aged 18 and above to take a four-day break from campus to enable them to participate in the voter registration process.
The four-day break, which starts from Tuesday, May 7, to Friday, May 10, was announced in a statement by the GES on May 6, 2024.
The EC intends to submit the provisional voter register to the political parties between July 9 and 18, 2024, and mount an exhibition of the voter register between July 15 and 24, 2024.
The final voter register is expected to be submitted to the political parties between August 30 and September 5, 2024.