EC to accept Ghana Card, passport for voter registration exercise Sept 12- Oct 2

The Electoral Com­mission (EC) of Ghana says it will accept the National Identification Card (Ghana Card) and the Ghana passport as proof of identification and eligibility for the upcoming Voter Registration Exercise.

Applicants who do not have these two Identification cards for the exercise scheduled for Sep­tember 12 to October 2, 2023, would be required to present two registered voters to vouch for their age and citizenship.

The exercise is for those who have now attained the eligible voter age of 18 years or those who are qualified, but could not register during the previous exercise.

The EC Chairperson, Jean Mensa, told journalists in Accra yesterday that the current Consti­tutional Instrument (C.I) 91 which spells out these requirement had been maintained for the exercise because Parliament did not support the draft CI which sought to make the Ghana Card the sole evidence of identification.

She said; “The Commission finds it unfortunate that its efforts to strengthen the credibility and integrity of our voter’s roll and by extension our elections by the in­troduction of the draft CI did not receive the support of Parliament.

“Members of Parliament were of the view that the National Iden­tification Authority (NIA) should fully resume its registration exercise nationwide before the CI could be considered. Sadly, the NIA has not fully commenced its operations nationwide due to lack of resourc­es,” she said.

“This leaves us with no option than to rely on the current CI with its inherent weaknesses to conduct the election until such a time that NIA will become fully operation­al,” Mrs Mensa added.

She explained that the Com­mission was making efforts to eliminate the guarantor system be­cause the 2020 registration exercise showed that several minors and foreigners use the system as a route to enter the register.

She said during that exercise, 40,000 minors and foreigners were challenged, leading to the deletion of about 15,000 of them from the register, a situation which could undermine the credibility of the country’s elections.

Mrs Mensa said the draft CI was in line with the Legislative Instru­ment 2111 which allowed Ghana Card for mandatory transactions, including voter registration.

But for the lack of resources of the NIA, she said, the commis­sion could have registered about 1.3 million citizens in three years, and therefore did not believe that citizens would have been disen­franchised.

Giving details on the registra­tion, she said, it would be conduct­ed at all 268 districts offices of the commission, while a supplementa­ry register and the provisional 2020 register would be exhibited during the registration.

She said eligible prison immates would also be registered.

While encouraging eligible persons to register, she said, the registration would not be the only exercise before 2024 election as the commission was looking forward to the passage of the draft CI to institute an all-year-round registra­tion exercise.

Touching on the District Level Election (DLE), Mrs Mensa announced that it would be held on December 19, 2023 in all 6272 electoral areas in all districts except those in Nkoranza North and South in the Bono East Region.

She explained that the DLE for 2019 was conducted in 2021 due to security reasons and thus, the next election ought to be conducted in 2025. She said a comprehensive programme would be announced later.

 BY JONATHAN DONKOR

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