530,000 Dead On Register - Only 64,274 Names Removed

Out of the estimated 600,000 dead people whose names remain on the voters’ register, only 64,274 were removed during the exhibition of the voters’ register that started on July 18, 2016 and ended on August 7, 2016.

This means the names of an estimated 530,000 registered voters who are dead remain on the voters’ register to be used for the December 7, polls.

Clearly, this development is a huge setback to efforts by the Electoral Commission (EC) to produce a clean register for this year’s elections.

64,274 Dead voters removed

Information obtained by The Finder from reliable sources indicates that family members used due process during the exhibition exercise to report the death of 64,274 people whose names are on the register.

It is estimated that there are more than 100,000 estimated deaths each year of Ghanaian nationality, aged 18 years and older.

Based on the reported number of voters registered in 2012 and 2014, as many as 600,000 estimated number of voter deaths would have occurred cumulatively by the 2016 elections.

3,853 Inclusions

According to the information, 3,853 voters who duly registered but their names were missing from the register applied for their names to be added to the voters register.

These omissions are said to have been occasioned by human and technical errors.

Objections raised on 5,034 voters

The sources said 5,034 names on the electoral roll have been objected to on grounds of the persons being minors, foreigners, as well as not ordinarily resident in the area.

15.7 million (15,703,986) names on electoral roll

Final figures from the EC reveal that the total number of names in the voters’ register is 15.7 million (15,703, 986).

According to the information, 7.2 million (7,226,199) registered voters verified their names during the 21 days of voters’ exhibition exercise.

This represents 46% of the total number of voters on the electoral roll.

The sources revealed that the EC is ready to present the documents at the Inter-Party Advisory Committee this week.

NHIS registrants: 29,550 re-registered

According to final figures, 29,550 voters, representing 52% of National Health Insurance (NHI) card registrants who were deleted, re-registered at the end of the entire exercise.

During phase one, held between July 18 and 28, 2016, a total of 24,287 voters, representing 42.78% out of the 56,772 NHI cardholders, re-registered.

27,222 NHI card voters fail to re-register

This means 27,222 NHI card registrants whose names were deleted failed to re-register.

Following agitations, the EC embarked on a phase two re-registration of NHI cardholders.

An additional 5,263 people were re-registered by the EC at the end of the second phase of the registration exercise for deleted NHI card voters last Friday.

The deletion of the names was as a result of a ruling by the Supreme Court directing the EC to delete the names of all persons who had used the NHI card to register as voters.

The exhibition of the voters’ register is very important in the electoral process because it offers all registered voters the opportunity to check their names and particulars, and also ensure that names of the dead and minors, as well as double registrations are removed and corrected respectively.

The EC has consistently said cleaning the voters' register is a collective responsibility and that every registered voter must be interested in checking their names in the register during the exhibition.