Jean Adukwei Mensa, Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana, has indicated that the provisional voter register is ready.
She noted that the EC is waiting for the various political parties to submit their hard drives so that the commission can make copies for their use and information.
“Distinguished members of the House, in our bid to provide timely information registration details for the citizenry, we missed a number of important steps in our data generation process. This resulted in some mistakes being made in some of the slides we put out”.
“We have since assessed our methods and introduced more rigorous processes which we believe will guarantee accuracy going forward. all in all Mister Speaker, in terms of the arrangements put in place, the conduct of our field staff, the availability of materials, and the functioning of our equipment among others, the 2024 Voter Registration Exercise was highly successful”.
Jean Adukwei Mensa
Jean Mensa further indicated that the just-ended voter registration exercise was inclusive and highly participatory, and to date, the EC has not received any complaints related to the disenfranchisement of citizens.
Addressing the House of Parliament today, 19th July 2024, she disclosed that the EC plans to undertake a mop-up voter registration exercise from August 1st to 3rd, 2024.
She noted that the exercise aims to enable citizens who turned eighteen after the May 29th registration exercise to register to vote.
The EC Chairperson further disclosed that the mop-up exercise will be conducted in all the Commission’s district offices across the country, including the newly created Guan district.
She indicated that the Commission will also extend the mop-up exercise to all prison centers across the country.
“We are working closely with the Ghana Prisons Service and we have obtained good details from them on the number of inmates in all the prison centers across the country”. – Jean Adukwei Mensa
EC Pushes For Ghana Card As Sole Verification Method
Moreover, Jean Adukwei Mensa stated that the Commission will continue to advocate for the use of the Ghana Card as the sole means of verifying age and citizenship during registration.
She noted that the Commission believes that relying solely on the Ghana Card to authenticate age and citizenship will be the surest way to ensure a credible register and reduce the tension and conflict that often characterize the registration exercise.
“Honorable members, as you may be aware, we have completed the proxy voting… We are confident that as in 2020, the Special Voting, slated for the 2nd of December 2024, will be incident-free and seamless. I am happy to note, Mr. Speaker, that next week we will be uploading the Special Voters’ list on our website”.
“We have also written to our security agencies and the media to provide us with pen drives to put the register on there to enable their review this list and bring to our attention any errors or issues we may have with the register”.
Jean Adukwei Mensa
Jean Mensa also stated that, in view of the mop-up registration exercise, the EC has rescheduled the voter register exhibition exercise from July 15th-21st to August 20th-27th.
This, she noted, will be held at the over 40,000 polling stations across the nation, stressing that the register will also be exhibited electronically, allowing citizens to check their registration details on their phones for a small fee.
The EC Chairperson noted that the online register will be available from the 20th of August until Election Day, which is December 7th, 2024.
Moreover, she also revealed that the EC has completed the recruitment of all its temporary staff for the election, recruiting approximately 210,000 temporary officials, including Returning Officers and their deputies, Presiding Officers, Verification Officers, and Name Reference Officers, among others.
She noted that the EC intends to provide the recruited officers with in-depth training to enable them to carry out their mandates as expected.
“For the first time in our history, we’ve created a database to capture the details of all our temporary officials”. – Jean Adukwei Mensah
She stated that the Commission can now verify the identities of its temporary staff with ease, using their names, photographs, voter ID numbers, and residential addresses, thereby ensuring the credibility of the electoral process.
READ ALSO: Nigel Farage Faces Backlash Over “Politics of the Subcontinent” Comment
