Register for change, don’t give up- John Mahama urges eligible voters

John Dramani Mahama, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) flag bearer and former president, has urged all eligible voters not to give up, especially those who are first-time participants and faced difficulties on the first day of the countrywide limited voter registration exercise.

“It wasn’t a good start to the registration exercise today, but be encouraged to register for change. Don’t let the frustrations stop you from visiting the Electoral Commission (EC) office and the selected Electoral Areas again tomorrow to be registered,” he said.

In an attempt to encourage all eligible voters who were unable to register at the beginning of the voter registration drive, which began last Tuesday, to do so, Mr. Mahama made this statement in a post on his Facebook wall.

“Ghana needs your vote on December 7. Get registered to vote Mahama and the NDC,” he said.

After a nationwide system problem prevented the voter registration exercise from starting, the initiative began just after noon on Tuesday.

Since many potential registrants had already left by the time the registration system was adjusted, many registration centers, which were mostly restricted to the EC’s district offices, only registered minimal numbers.

Before that, the registration centers had been scenes of turmoil and despair due to the faulty system, which forced the EC to hold a high-level technical conference in order to find a solution.

EC

The EC ascribed the predicament to “technical challenges with internet connectivity in a number of our centers” in a statement. It stated that “the registration exercise is proceeding smoothly in almost all the registration centers nationwide” after the issue was eventually fixed.

In an interview, Dr. Serebour Quaicoe, Director of Electoral Services at the EC headquarters, stated that the technical issues had been fixed and the exercise was proceeding without a hitch.

He reiterated that the exercise was intended for people who had turned 18 and those who were unable to register the previous time (2023) and that it would run for 21 days with the commission’s goal of registering 623,000 eligible individuals.

Visit by Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang

The Daily Graphic revealed that they found that the exercise was proceeding without a hitch when they visited a few registration centers in the Greater Accra Region.

During her visit to the University of Professional Studies in Accra and the Ayawaso West Wuogon Centre yesterday, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, the running mate of the NDC flag bearer, acknowledged her delight with the process.

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However, she lamented that the technical difficulties from last Tuesday that almost prevented the exercise from getting underway.