A scuffle broke out during the limited voter registration at the Tepa Electoral Commission office in the Ashanti Region leading to the arrest of three individuals.
The Ghana Police Service swiftly restored calm, allowing the registration process to resume smoothly.
The suspects Abass Abukari, George Vinor, and Abdul Karim are now assisting in the ongoing police investigation.
The nationwide limited voter registration, initiated by the Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC) ahead of the 2024 general elections, targets first-time voters and those seeking voter cards.
Chairperson Jean Mensa stated the goal is to register approximately 623,000 first-time voters countrywide.
“The registration will be from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. And that gives us the figure of 623,000 that we have put there. That is not to say that we cannot go beyond that. We did mention that in 2023, we projected 700,000 people to visit our registration centers.”
To mitigate challenges like power outages, the EC has equipped all district offices with rented generators, ensuring uninterrupted registration services.
“We are trying hard to make arrangements to ensure that we don’t face challenges because of ‘dumsor.’ What we’ve done is to have all our district offices rent generators so that in the event where there’s ‘dumsor,’ they can kick in. However, should there be the unexpected, we would switch to offline mode, meaning voters will be registered manually, and their details will be stored on a pen drive. This data will be copied in our offices when the power returns, so the registration will not be disrupted.”
The 21-day registration period will run until May 27, 2024.