Two arrested for attempting double voter registration in Wa

The Electoral Commission (EC) in Wa has detained two persons for attempting double registration during the present restricted voter registration operation.

This was disclosed to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Wa on Tuesday when the GNA visited the registration center by Ben Alaglo, the Wa Municipal Electoral Officer.

“Initially, we wanted to hand them over to the police, but we warned them and allowed them to go. When we asked them, they said they thought they did not registered in 2016 that is why they came to register again.”

“I asked my officers to tell those who are here to register that if anyone has already registered, he or she should not attempt registering again because the machines will detect them and they will be made to face the law”, he explained.

Over 40 persons had registered and received ID cards by the time the GNA arrived at the Wa registration center at 13:40 HRS.

The GNA also noted that there was no lengthy line because few individuals showed up to register.

The Municipal EC Director stated that there were just twelve individuals waiting to be registered when he got at the office at around 0630 HRS. He continued, “I thought by the time I get here, the yard will be full.”

According to Alaglo, the exercise began at 8:00 HRS, and “We were the first to hit the database in the region” to be the first center to start registration.

The GNA was informed by Louis Arthur, the EC technician at the registration center, that everything was running according to plan and that there were no problems with the registration equipment.

The limited voter registration drive is being organized by the EC to give all eligible voters in the nation the opportunity to do so ahead of the District Level Election (DLE) later this year.

The 21-day exercise will take place from Monday through Sunday from 0800 to 1700 HRS each day and is expected to finish on October 2.

Based on its forecast that such a large number of people may have reached the age of 18 after the last registration effort in 2020, the EC had set a target to register at least 1,350,000 people in the 2023 voter registration exercise.