Low Turnout In Rescheduled District Level Elections | Elections

The Voter turnout of the District Level Elections (DLEs) in four constituencies in the Eastern Region, was low.

The constituencies are Akyem Oda, Akyem Swedru, Akyem Achiase and Asene-Akroso-Manso.

The various presiding officers interviewed by our reporter on the low turnout of voters in the DLEs attributed the problem to several factors.

Prominent among them was the postponement of the election by the Electoral Commission from last Tuesday, December 19, 2023, to yesterday, Thursday, December 21, 2023.

The Presiding Officers said some anxious voters travelled all the way from their various locations to their constituencies to cast their votes and when the election was postponed, they returned to their places of abode and refused to return yesterday to vote.

Reasons

They also claimed that Oda is the biggest trading centre in the area and as yesterday was the last market day of Christmas, most of the people prefer to do business at the market to generate some income as they would not gain anything wasting their time to cast their votes.

Others attributed the low turnout to apathy on the part of the voters.

Unlike the Presidential and Parliamentary elections, most of the voters looked down on the local-level elections.

As at 1 p.m. yesterday, the CMB voting centre at Akyem Asuboa South and recorded only 90 votes as against a total of 429 registered voters, while at the Akyem Manso A.M.E. Zion voting centre, only 87 out of the 515 registered voters had cast their votes as at 1:30 p.m., with the Beposo voting centre also at Manso recording 127 out of 616 voters as at 1:45 pm.

At the Awisa West voting centre at Akyem Asene, only 173 voters had cast their votes as at 2 p.m.

At the Kyeremem No. 2 voting centre at Oda 223 voters out of a total of 429 had cast their votes at 3 p.m. while at the Akwamuhene’s Palace voting centre at Oda, only 143 out of the total 398 had voted as at 3:10 p.m.

At the Anoo voting centre at Oda Old Town, 148 out of the 610 registered voters had voted as at 3:20 p.m., and at Oda New Town Presby JHS 2 voting centre, a total of 107 out of 299 registered voters had cast their votes as at 3:30 p.m.