16.9 million voters captured after registration exercise – EC

A total of 16,963,306 voters have been registered in the mass voter registration which ended last week, the Electoral Commission of Ghana has announced.

Mrs. Jean Mensa, Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, announced this on Wednesday at a press conference in Accra.

The figures, she explained, were provisional as they were awaiting the processes of de-duplication and adjudication.

More women registered

She noted that at the end of the registration exercise, women comprised of 51.73 percent while men took up of 48.27 percent.

According to data, the Upper East Region and the Western Region had the highest number of females and male registrants per population respectively, with the Upper East recording 54.6 percent and the Western Region recording 51.2 percent.

First-time voters

The EC Chairperson added that at the end of the exercise, 762,944 18-year-olds had registered as first-time voters which represented 4.5 percent of the total register.

With respect to 19-year-olds, the EC said 612,104 registered which brought the total number of 18 and 19-year-olds to 1,375,048 persons representing 8.1 percent of the total register.

Documents presented

Out of the over 16 million registered, 60.09 percent presented the Ghana Card, 37.99 percent used the guarantor system, and 1.92 percent registered with the passport.

The region with the highest persons who used the Ghana Card is the Oti Region, where 79.1 percent presented the Ghana Card followed by the Eastern Region where 78.5 percent presented the Ghana Card.

The Western North Region came third with 76.9 percent using the Ghana Card.

Guarantor system

With the guarantor system, the Upper East Region recorded the highest number with 58.5 percent followed by Bono and Ahafo regions where 57.7 percent using the guarantor system.

Without fingerprints

The number of applicants registered without fingerprints and would be verified on election day using facial recognition features is 61,995 representing 0.37 percent of the total number of registered voters.

The Upper East Region had the highest number of this class of applicants with a total of 9244 found to have problematic fingerprints.

Source: Graphic Online