The northern region recorded about 88 percent of voter turnout in the December 1, 2020, Special Voting exercise earlier this week, the Regional Director of the Electoral Commission, Mr. Lucas Yiryil has said, describing the figure as a very high number.
The Custodian can report that the northern region had a total of 6, 349 voter population for the special voting exercise ahead of the general election next Monday.
However, the EC Director disclosed the commission has realized that some of the electorates particularly the security officers after the compilation of the voters register few months ago went on service transfers which in his view could’ve accounted for the region not recording one hundred percent turnout.
When asked about some delays in the start of voting in the Tamale Metropolis, Mr. Lucas Yiryil explained the political parties delayed to arrive at the police station for the electoral officers to pick the ballots papers early enough.
He assured there wouldn’t be any delays for the start of the presidential and parliamentary elections on 7 December as it happened in the early voting, indicating the ballots are normally picked a day earlier to the polls.
He however posited the entire electoral process on the Tuesday polls went on smoothly and that all those who were entitle to vote voted without any difficult.
He emphasized that all voters were verified through the Biometric Verification Device (BVD), stating unequivocally that, “This goes to testify that the equipment we are going to use are up to date and they are of quality and we wouldn’t have problems with people being verified to through the process to vote.”
He noted the peaceful atmosphere that surrounded the conduct of the special voting exercise explains what would happen on 7 December, 2020, when the entire nation goes to exercise their franchise despite that some people will argue that the number of voters was small.
“So we expect people to conduct as it happened on December 1 where everything went on successfully without any problem. And we have demonstrated that our equipment were very accurate and performed to perfection and we expect a similar scenario on the 7 December” he added.
