Voters’ Registration: EC to Conduct Special Registration for Students, Prisoners

EC officials would move to the schools and prison establishments on specific days to register eligible people

Jul 3, 2020 - 08:55

Voters’ Registration: EC to Conduct Special Registration for Students, Prisoners

Ghana’s Electoral Commission (EC) says a special programme will be conducted in lieu to the mass voters’ registration exercise to register qualified senior high school (SHS) students in school and inmates of prison establishments.

The Director of Electoral Services at the commission, Dr Serebour Quarcoo, who disclosed this, said a tentative date for that special registration exercise would be announced in the coming days.

“We are finalising arrangements to go to SHSs and prisons across the country to register qualified Ghanaians there, and the two exercises will be rolled out together,” he said in an interview with the Daily Graphic.

Throwing more light on how the exercise would be conducted, he said EC officials would move to the schools and prison establishments on specific days to register eligible people.

“There will not be permanent registration centres there; what will happen is that our officials will go to those places, and based on the numbers, register the people and leave,” he stressed.

Following the phase-out easing of restrictions by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo last month, final-year students in basic schools, final-year students and second-year Gold Track students in SHSs and final-year students in tertiary institutions have returned to school to complete their courses.

Since the EC started the mass registration exercise last Tuesday, there have been concerns over how SHS students who are 18 years and above will get the opportunity to register.

This is especially so when the Ghana Education Service (GES), as a measure to curb the spread of the COVID-19, has directed heads of SHSs to send home any final-year student who leaves the school compound.

However, Dr Serebour said the EC had decided to do special registration on SHS compounds in order not to disenfranchise qualified students.

“The students will get an opportunity to register and get their names on the electoral roll when our officials go to the schools. But it must be noted that those centres will not be permanent,” he stressed.