The Centre for Democracy and Socio-Economic Development CDS-Africa wishes to commend Ghana’s Electoral Commission for the introduction of the Online Registration feature in the ongoing limited Voter Registration Exercise.
The online system synchronises the list of registrants across the country in real time and allows the elimination of multiple registrations by applicants. This we believe will help improve the sanctity of our voter database and improve public’s confidence in our elections.
The Limited Voters Registration exercise being conducted by the Electoral Commission (EC) seeks to register about 1.35 million Ghanaians who are 18 years and above and other eligible persons who could not register in 2020 when it was last conducted.
This new approach to voter registration will in the future provide the opportunity for cross verification of national databases such as the National Identification Authority’s database. Gradually, we believe the nation is moving towards owning a clean and well-synchronized database of its citizens as is the case in many other parts of the world.
We also wish to commend the EC for the swift manner in which issues of faulty kits, inadequate kits and network issues were resolved in many of the centres within the first 6 days of the exercise.
However, we wish to draw the attention of the Electoral Commission to the large crowds at these centres which is even expected to increase in coming days due to many Senior High Schools vacating. Also, we encourage the EC to collaborate with the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) to promote public awareness about the ongoing exercise to avert misinformation. Lastly, the EC must consider the call being made by some CSOs and Political Parties to decentralise the process and open more of these registration centres within the electoral areas to allow all eligible applicants register before the deadline of 2nd October 2023.
We call on all Ghanaians to support the Electoral Commission in its quest, as they are the only body mandated by the state to conduct and handle all election relation exercises. We also need to desist from unnecessarily tagging and defaming the image of the Commission in the interest of protecting the peace we currently enjoy under the fourth republican dispensation.
