Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Jean Mensa says there are minors and foreigners among the 16.9 million persons it has so far registered to vote on December 7.
According to the EC boss, there are measures are in by the commission to clean up the register before the December polls.
“The Commission is mindful of the infiltration of foreigners at a number of our registration centers. Additionally, we are aware that a number of minors have also found their way into the register,” Ms. Mensa said.
This comes days after the Commission patted itself on the back for the successful completion of the voters’ registration exercise.
She made these revelations as she addressed the media at a press conference on Wednesday, August 12, 2020.
The infiltration of foreigners on the old register was one of the many reasons for the demand of the new register.
Last week, the EC during its weekly update assured it is on course to deliver a credible election with a register comprising only Ghanaians.
Jean Mensa announced that 16,963,306 persons had been registered onto the new voters’ register.
Deduplication and adjudication process
She said there were provisional figures of pending processes on de-duplication and adjudication, which includes the 30,814 persons registered during the two-day mop-up registration exercise over the weekend.
“The process of deduplication and adjudication, which are currently going will flag multiple registrations in the system.
“Additionally, the challenge system put in place during the registration and exhibition exercise will further flag unqualified voters on the register”.
The EC chairperson was optimistic about the upcoming process as it “will contribute to the cleaning of the register and ensure its integrity and credibility ahead of the 2020 election”.
According to Ms. Mensa, the Greater Accra Region had the most registered voters with 3,509,805 persons, with the Ashanti Region recording some 3,013,856 persons followed by Eastern Region with 1,628,108 persons and the Central Region with 1,566,061 persons.
Meanwhile, one of the newly created regions, the Oti Region, has recorded the highest number of persons who used the ‘Ghana Card’ as identification in the just ended voter’s registration exercise, according to the commission.
“Out of the over 16 million persons who registered at the end of the exercise, 60.09 percent of citizens used the Ghana Card. Also, 37.99 percent registered through the guarantor system and 1.92 percent registered with their passports”.
“The region with the highest number of persons who used the Ghana Card is the Oti Region where 79.1 percent of the registered population presented the Ghana Card.”
“They are followed by the Eastern Region where 78.5 percent of applicants presented the Ghana Card. The Western North Region came third with 76.9 percent of the registered population presenting Ghana Cards,” Ms. Jean stated.
The commission also announced last week that there were close to 800,000 persons “quarantined” on multiple registrations and exceptions list.
As a result, they have instituted an Adjudication Committee to manually determine cases of duplicated voter registrations.
