Participate, Monitor & Report Any Anomalies For A Credible Register - EC Boss Urges Ghanaians As Exercise Begins Tuesday
Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Madam Jean Mensa has said there is a need for Ghanaians to participate and monitor the voters' registration exercise at their various registration centres as it will be critical to maintaining the integrity of the new register.
She has therefore asked citizens to draw the attention of the Commission to any anomalies observed during the process in order to arrive at a comprehensive and credible Voters' Register.
"Dear citizens, your participation in, and monitoring of, the voters’ registration exercise will be critical to maintaining the integrity of the Register. Please participate in the Voters Registration Exercise. Monitor the process at your registration centre. Draw the attention of the Commission to any anomalies you might observe in the process. Together, we will arrive at a comprehensive and credible Voters Register," she urged.
"We will like to assure you that, as a Commission, our rationale for compiling a new register, is not to disenfranchise any eligible voter. On the contrary, it is to ensure that all our citizens who qualify are afforded the opportunity to register and cast their votes. The Commission is of the view that only eligible citizens should be given the right to determine who governs and leads our dear country, and we are determined to ensure that no one is left behind.
"We also deem it necessary to assure you that our decisions and actions are taken without fear or favour and without recourse to any individual or group of persons. We have a duty to our citizens to ensure that it is only the will of the people that stands," Jean Mensa said at the press conference, Monday evening.
Registration exercise
The Supreme Court in its ruling last Thursday directed the Commission and all its stakeholders to comply with Articles 42 and 45 of the 1992 Constitution, and CI 126.
By this ruling, the Supreme Court granted the Electoral Commission the authority to carry on with the compilation of the new Voters’ Register using CI 126 and to exclude the existing Voter ID cards as identification for voters.
This ruling provides the Electoral Commission with the go-ahead to commence the 2020 Voter Registration Exercise.
This exercise will begin tomorrow, 30th June 2020 and will continue until 6th of August 2020.
The EC has recruited and trained and deployed over 44,000 temporary officials into the field.
Ahead of the Registration Exercise, the Commission will deploy 8,000 Biometric Voter Registration Kits into the field.
Over 5,000 technicians have also been deployed to the field and zonal centres set up across the country to detect faulty kits.
According to Jean Mensa, the kits have been thoroughly tested and the Commission is confident that they will function effectively and ensure the smooth and speedy registration of each applicant.
Mode of Registration
The Cluster system will be used for the voter registration exercise. A cluster will consist of five (5) registration centres/polling stations in a district. In all, a total of 6,788 clusters made up of 5 polling stations each will be covered. This means that all 33,367 registration centres will be covered during the registration exercise. The registration will take place simultaneously in all 16 Regions.
The entire registration will be undertaken in five (5) phases. Each phase will span a duration of six days. In effect, a registration team will spend six (6) days at each of the five centres in a cluster, thus making thirty (30) days per cluster. Six (6) days will be used for the mop-up exercise.
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