Polls: 3 districts excluded; no queue for persons with disability

Three districts will not participate in the District Assembly and Unit Committee elections scheduled for December 17, 2019, the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana has disclosed.

The areas are the Nkoranza North, Nkoranza South, and Lower Manya Krobo districts.

This was announced by the Deputy Director in charge of Operations at the EC, Samuel Tetteh, a day before the polls.

He explained that the districts had the elections in 2018 and will not participate in the upcoming polls.

“Voters in these three districts will not vote in this election,” Mr Tetteh emphasized.

In September 2015, the EC on the advice of the then Brong Ahafo Regional Security Council suspended district level elections in Nkoranza South and Nkoranza South districts because of a possible disruption of the process.

In the case of the Lower Manya District, the Supreme Court in 2015 ruled that the election in the area be suspended over challenges with electoral area demarcations.

Members of the public are to elect new assembly heads and unit committee members for the next four-year term after the expiration of the tenure of the current leaders this year. The exercise starts at 7 am and ends at 5 pm in designated areas within the districts.

Mr Tetteh further stated that provisions have been made to exclude Persons Living with Disability (PLWD) from waiting in long queues to cast their ballot. He said because of their physical challenges “persons with disabilities will not be required to join long queues in order to vote”.

The EC said some 159,000 election officials trained for the exercise have been deployed to their various locations for the process to commence.

In addition, members of the public who have missing voter ID cards can still vote at the respective polling stations since the EC has a database of all registered voters.