Just Ended Voters Register Exhibition Exercise 

NEWS COMMENTARY ON THE JUST ENDED VOTERS REGISTER EXHIBITION EXERCISE 

The exhibition of the voters’ register has ended. The exercise was an opportunity for people to cross check their names in the register and make sure that their details are correctly captured. This is to guarantee that they are set to exercise their franchise come December 7 when the nation goes to the poll to elect a President and Members of Parliament. It was also an occasion for the EC to test run its equipment, i.e. biometric verification devices ahead of the crucial election. As the exhibition centres doubled as polling stations, the exercise afforded those who turned up the opportunity to know where they will be voting during the election. This will go a long way to save some the trouble they will have to go through identifying their voting centres in the election. Unlike the previous exercises which lasted for two weeks, the EC extended the duration this time around by one week, and in addition introduced biometric verification.  The EC also deployed adequate personnel and equipment to ensure that all registered voters spend as little time as possible at the various centres to check their details and get verified by their fingers. 

Despite that, entire turnout was still low nationwide. According to the EC, only 1,003,812 people were verified during the first three days of the exercise. Going by that statistics, less than half of the total number of the people on the register would have verified their names at the end of the 21 day exercise. But most importantly, the exhibition exercise was a great opportunity for the public to challenge people they deem ineligible to register and vote in Ghana. That is people who are not Ghanaians of 18 years and above and of sound mind as stipulated in the 1992 constitution. However, in spite of talks of the register being bloated, not much effort was made by the major stakeholders to clean it. After the 2012 election, one of the grounds for the presidential election petition that lasted eight months at the Supreme Court was the alleged bloating of the register. 

For the past two years, if there was any single issue that sharply divided the two major political parties, then it was a matter related to the voters register. While, there is unanimity that the register is not clean enough, opinions were sharply divided as to how to make it more credible. The main opposition party and some pressure groups were of the view that the register was incurably bloated and the best way out was for it to be discarded and a new one compiled. The ruling party on the other hand believed the register could be cleaned using the established process of challenge during the exhibition of the register. There is no doubt that a credible election begins with a credible register. That is why it is important that relentless effort is made to clean the register. 



The order by the Supreme Court directed at the EC to delete names of those who registered with the National Health Insurance Scheme cards as proof of their Ghanaian nationality was one step at cleaning the register. The truth however is, it was not the 56,000 people identified by the EC as having registered with the NHIS cards that made the register inaccurate. Indeed, there were allegations of thousands of non-Ghanaians, minors and dead people on the register. That is why it is appalling that political parties, especially the vociferous ones did not do enough to whip up public enthusiasm in the just ended exhibition exercise. This was an opportunity for anyone with evidence to show that there are ineligible people on the register to have come forward to challenge those individuals. With the exhibition exercise over and with no likelihood of an extension, the controversy over the credibility of the register must be buried. It will be unconscionable for any political party, pressure group or individual to shout from the rooftop again about minors and foreigners being on the register. In that they had the opportunity to get those names deleted but failed to do so. And as the saying goes, you cannot eat your cake and have it. Perhaps, the inability of those people to challenge names on the register goes to suggest that the allegations they made had no basis. At best, they were mere speculations. 

Going forward, the EC with the support of other stakeholders like the political parties, the National Commission for Civic Education and the media must adopt a more innovative way of whipping up public enthusiasm in the subsequent exhibition exercises. 

BY BUBU KLINOGO, A JOURNALIST