The Electoral Commission has said some 61,086 voters who were part of those captured in the just-ended registration exercise, fall under the trauma category – meaning, their fingerprints could not be captured by the electronic system.
This mean, they would have to go through facial verification on the day of the general elections before they can vote.
At a press conference in Accra on Friday, 7 August 2020, the Deputy Chair of the EC, Dr Eric Bossman Asare, said: “In the course of the registration, the Commission identified some applicants who have lost most or some of their finger imprints, making it extremely difficult for their fingerprints to be captured for verification purposes”.
“The reasons for this are several but they are largely rooted in the kinds of occupations of some applicants”, he noted.
“For these applicants, their faces will be verified during the election to establish their identities”, he said.
He added: “This is the facial recognition that the Commission has been talking about”.
In both real and nominal terms, Dr Asare said the Upper East region leads with 9,137 cases constituting 1.42% of the total voters registered.
He said with the exception of Ahafo, all the regions are in four digits.
Regional breakdown
WESTERN – 2,742
WESTERN NORTH – 1,224
CENTRAL – 2,484
GREATER ACCRA – 7,092
VOLTA – 5,873
OTI – 1,586
EASTERN – 3,162
ASHANTI – 7,625
BONO – 3,009
AHAFO – 799
BONO EAST – 2,802
SAVANNAH – 3,045
NORTHERN – 4,632
NORTH EAST – 1,557
UPPER EAST – 9,137
UPPER WEST – 4,317
NATIONAL TOTAL – 61,086
Source: Class FM
