The Director of Electoral Services of the Electoral Commission, Dr. Serebour Quaicoe has indicated that the Commission exceeded its target in the limited voter registration exercise by registering more than 900,000 people as against a target of 700,000 eligible voters.
He noted that the figures recorded do not support the claim that some persons had been disenfranchised.
According to Dr. Quaicoe except for the National Democratic Congress, all political parties participated in its Wednesday, October 5 2023 Inter-Party Advisory Committee meeting.
Dr. Quaicoe further indicated that the Commission has established a Registration Adjudication Review Committee which its membership includes the staff of the Commission, representatives of the political parties and representatives of the civil societies.
He noted that the Committee will examine and investigate issues of double and multiple registrations and give its report to the Electoral Commission for subsequent action.
“There is a team we called adjudication team, they will pull out the suspected multiples registrants from the EC’s database, and each of them if you have registered more than three, various pictures will come with various thumbs and with fingerprint accompany to identify if it was the same machine that the Commission used or the person used a different machine or they were registered different days; all those details will come. We will then have a look at it and check whether that was a mechanical error or the person did it intentionally”.
Dr Serebour Quaicoe
He again noted that the Electoral Commission only encountered the issues of double and multiple registrations when it used the offline system, given that the Commission wanted to identify whether it was a genuine error or otherwise.
The Director of Electoral Services at the Electoral Commission also revealed that the Commission has begun work for the replacement of ID Cards for voters in the Guan District in the Volta Region.
According to Dr. Quaicoe, the Guan District used to be under the Jasikan District during the last registration. He noted that there is a need to create a different code for the Guan District which will differ from the Jasikan District codes.
He further indicated that the Commission has initiated steps to ensure the Guan District participates in the 2024 presidential and parliamentary elections. According to him, the Electoral Commission has made provision in its CI that it has introduced to Parliament.
EC Receives No Complaints About Its Voter Registration Exercise
The Director of Electoral Services of the Electoral Commission, Dr. Serebour Quaicoe also indicated that no political party complained about the just-ended limited voter registration exercise when they met at the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting on Wednesday, October 4 2023.
According to Dr Quaicoe, at the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting on Wednesday, October 4 2023, all the parties that attended agreed the Electoral Commission did a good job.
“None of them complained; not a single one complained that we have disenfranchised anyone. Today, we referred to those who are in court and they agreed that we have done a good job. Now they are concerned about the adjudication process”.
Dr. Serebour Quaicoe
This comes after political parties and civil society groups criticized the EC for holding the registration exercise at its district offices claiming it would disenfranchise eligible voters.
The main opposition party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) together with other four opposition political parties even filed a suit against the Electoral Commission of Ghana in the Supreme Court to compel the Electoral Commission to conduct its limited voter registration exercise at the electoral area level to give all eligible voters access to the process in line with the letter and spirit of Article 42 of the 1992 Constitution, Regulation 2(1)(2) of C.I 91 and the EC’s time-tested practices.
The limited voter registration exercise conducted by the Electoral Commission across its district offices in the country ended on Monday, October 2 2023.
