HELP • EC wants electoral register cleaned

THE Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC), Dr Kwadwo Afari Gyan, has described the figures on the current voters register as statiscally incorrect and made a passionate appeal to Ghanaians to help him and the EC to clean it up.
He said in its current form, the register could be a recipe for chaos on election day, warning that if Ghanaians did not assist the EC to clean it during the voters register exhibition exercise, Ghanaians will see children, foreigners and people with double identity voting on election day “and nothing could be done about it.”
“If we don’t correct it now and wait till the voting day, you will see a minor voting and because you cannot challenge his eligibility, people might resort to force to take them away from the queue, which could result in chaotic situations”, he noted.
He said with the current national population of 22 million, having almost 13 million people on the voters register was unheard of.
During the recent limited registration, the EC estimated that at most one million people would be registered but the number soared to a staggering 1,835,417. This increased the voter number from 10,354,970 to 12,822,474.
Dr Gyan was speaking at an open forum after the EC had organised a familiarisation tour of its facilities at its national headquarters for regional executive members of political parties from the Eastern and Central regions in Accra over the weekend.
The tour was organised by the EC in collaboration with KAB Governance Consult and Freiderich Ebert Foundation. The party executive members were taken through the operations room, where results from the regions are compiled, the IT room, where results, as well as the voters register, are processed.
To the amazement of the media and the party executives, the EC Chairman sent round some of the registration forms bearing pictures of minors who registered. Both both the media and the party executive members were in one accord that some of the minors who were registered were as young as four years old.
But Dr Afari Gyan said although there was every indication that to all intents and purposes those people were minors, the EC, on its own volition, could not remove their names from the register until the culprits or their parents called for the deletion of their names from the register or some Ghanaians challenged their eligibility.
Dr Afari Gyan appealed to the conscience of Ghanaians, especially those who have engaged in double registration and parents whose children are below the age of 18 but have registered, to voluntarily get to the commission’s offices anywhere in the country to delete such names from the register.
He commended some Ghanaians who, on their own accord, had approached the EC to delete their names from the register for various reasons.
He said, for instance, that a lady from Sekondi who could not readily locate her voter identity card and registered during the recent limited registration had submitted the new card to the EC.
The EC boss also appealed to the political parties to use as polling agents well educated and serious people who are abreast of electoral rules and also have the capacity and capability to use the correct processes to protect their interests at the polling stations.
He said the voting and votes compilation process were such that the commission members at the headquarters could not alter any of the figures that had gone through the polling stations, constituency and regional offices.
He said in all these processes, the political party agents signed the figures before they were sent to Accra “and as the returning officer, I only receive what comes through and we cannot alter such figures that had gone through such processes”.
Dr Afari Gyan said when an illiterate polling agent thumbprints any figure written for his candidate, whether it is correct or not, there was nothing the EC officials at the national headquarters could do about it.
“Get a competent agent who understands the electoral rules and can make a good point and be vigilant but not a macho man who cannot read, cannot write and does not understand the processes. Elections are about laws and not about brawn,” he added.
He expressed worry that some leading political figures who should know better rather speak as if the EC commission members were magicians who could use magic to change results, with others also spreading the falsehood that the EC members used their powers as commissioners to manipulate figures.