The Commission went through various opposition from political parties and some civil society organizations in the country when it announced its intent to compile a new register.
According the EC, a litany of problems has engulfed the old register, therefore, to ensure a credible election on December 7, there is the need to compile a new one.
Among the issues, the Electoral Commission said most of the old biometric devices are faulty. It also said it will be costly to repair those machines as compared to procuring new ones.
The EC also was alarmed on data manipulation of the election figures with the old machines and set out to get a new vendor for the data protection.
It also, in a subtle way on several occasions, suggested that the old voters register was bloated and it has a huge number of foreigners on it.
Albeit the challenges it faced due to the raging coronavirus pandemic and violence at some registration centers, the EC was able to pull the exercise off.
The Commission announced that it has provisionally registered 16,963,306 people across Ghana for the 2020 general elections.
We, at Pulse Ghana, therefore decided to look at the numbers.
Below is a breakdown of the statistics and numbers of the 38-day exercise
1. 8,187,689 of the 16,963,306 registered were males which represents 48.27%
2. 8,775,608 of 16,963,306 registered voters were females which represents 51.73%
3. 10,192,825 Ghanaians registered with Ghana card representing 60.09%
4. 6,444,805 registered through the guarantors system representing 37.99%
5. 323,676 Ghanaians registered with their passports which represented 1.92%
6. 762,944 people registered for the first time; 383,973 of that number were females and 378,971 are males.
7. 64,966 persons with disability registered as compared to 61,959 who did in 2016
Regional breakdown of registrants
Greater Accra – 3,509,805
Ashanti Region – 3,013,856
Eastern Region – 1,628,180
Central Region – 1,566,061
Western Region – 1,185,315
Northern Region – 1,047,539
Volta Region – 929,322
Upper East Region – 653,730
Bono Region – 648,408
Bono East Region – 592,015
Upper West Region – 470,271
Western North Region – 465,444
Oti Region – 353,492
Ahafo Region – 315,827
Savanna Region – 295,648
North East Region – 288,393
