Following the Exhibition of the Provisional Voters Register, several comments have been made by sections of the society.
While some are borne out of genuine concerns, others are without basis and calculated to tarnish the image of the Electoral Commission. As a Commission, we deem it our duty to provide the Public with the truth.
On Monday, 26th August, the Commission received a report from our Northern Regional Directorate that some voters from two Polling Stations in the Tamale South Constituency and one Polling Station in the Sagnerigu Constituency had been transferred to the Pusiga Constituency in the Upper East Region without their knowledge or consent.
The Commission would like to inform the General Public that it has concluded preliminary investigations into the alleged unauthorized voter transfers. The Commission would like to address the Public on this matter as follows:
Regulation 22, Sub-Regulation 1 of Constitutional Instrument (C.I.) 127 provides that, “A registered voter who before an election is resident for not less than twelve months in a constituency other than that in which the registered voter is registered, may apply to the returning officer of the constituency where the registered voter is resident for the name of the registered voter to be entered on the transferred voters list of a polling station in that constituency.”
Per the provision of the law, the Registered Voter must be physically present to request for the transfer of vote to another Polling Station. The transfer of vote can only be done at the District Offices and requires the presence of the Voter who must be verified using either his/her face or fingerprints.
The voters involved in the Tamale South and Sagnerigu Constituencies incident have denied taking part in a transfer exercise. What they have alluded to is that their Voter ID Cards were collected by one Haruna Muniru ostensibly for the processing of a loan. The said Haruna Muniru was in Police custody last week. He is currently on bail and Police investigations continue.
Preliminary investigations by the Commission have revealed that voter transfers were indeed effected for Thirty-Eight (38) individuals using the credentials of an Electoral Commission Official. The records of those transfers are captured in the Voter Management System’s (VMS) audit logs. A look at the verification done during the transfer process shows that photos of the voters from their Voter ID Cards were used for facial verification and to effect the transfers.
Following this incident, the Commission has introduced a ‘liveliness check’ in the verification process, which is a feature designed to ensure that the biometric data being captured is from a live, present human being and not from a spoofed source, such as a photograph, which is what was done in this case. The ‘liveliness check’ has since been built into the system to prevent any such future occurrence.
The Commission is currently investigating. While the Commission does not have any evidence to believe that this occurrence is widespread, we have instituted investigations to ascertain if similar incidents occurred elsewhere beyond the reported case in the Tamale South and Sagnerigu Constituencies. Any such transfers will be reversed and the perpetrators of such acts shall be dealt with according to the law.
Following preliminary investigations, the Commission has suspended the Pusiga District Electoral Officer and has invited him to respond to the Commission’s findings. Once the investigations are concluded, the Commission will take the appropriate action and inform the Public accordingly.
The Commission would like to assure the Public that it will not shield any of its Officers (both permanent and temporary) found complicit in any electoral malpractices and will always allow such persons to face the full rigours of the law.
We wish to restate that the Provisional Voters Register is not the Final Voters Register. The central objective of the Exhibition Exercise is to correct any anomalies and issues with the Provisional Register before the Final Register is produced. This has been the practice since 1992.
The Commission wishes to assure the Public that, after the Exhibition Exercise, the Final Voters Register that will be produced will be robust and credible.
The Provisional Voters Register that was prepared for the just-ended Exhibition Exercise and also provided to all political parties has a Transferred Voters List and an Absent Voters List for each Polling Station. The Absent Voters List should contain a list of all voters that have been transferred out of a particular Polling Station within the period that the Electoral Commission opened up the register for transfers and special voting.
The Absent Voters List should contain only voters who have transferred their votes and those partaking in special voting. The Transferred Voters List conversely contains all voters who have been transferred to the Polling Station within that period.
In the preparations towards the 2024 Exhibition Exercise, the Absent Voters List and the Transferred Voters List inadvertently included all transfers that had been done since 2020 when this Register was first prepared. This has resulted in a higher-than-expected number of Absent and Transferred Voters.
This understandably may have caused some anxiety to our stakeholders, as exemplified by the press conference addressed by the NDC in the Ajumako-Enyan-Esiam Constituency of the Central Region. The Commission has corrected this anomaly and will share with all the Political Parties the corrected Absent and Transferred Voters List for each Polling Station that contains only those applicants who successfully applied for transfers or special voting for the 2024 General Elections.
It is also absolutely untrue that the Commission has added names to the Voters Register in a bid to rig the elections for a particular party. Those allegations are without merit and should be disregarded by the Public. The EC has no intention of bloating the register to give any political party advantage over the other.
As explained earlier, the cumulative transfer data for 2020, 2023 and 2024 were inadvertently summed up in the registers provided to the Political Parties. This has been corrected and the revised register will be provided after all corrections have been made. The revised transfer list will be shared with the parties.
It is well known fact that Ghana has one of the most transparent and inclusive electoral processes in Africa. From registration to the declaration of results all our processes are transparent, inclusive and open to the Political Parties and the citizenry. Nothing is hidden. There are no secrets. Any interested party or citizen can with no effort obtain relevant information on all aspects of the electoral process. Therefore the suggestion that the peace and the outcome of the election is hinged on the Chairperson of the EC is untrue. We urge the public to ignore statements even from prominent citizens that suggest that achieving peaceful elections in 2024 is somehow in the bosom of the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission.
The Commission has nothing to hide. The Provisional Voters Register is a public document on display and is available online for voters to access in order to verify their details. This is not a secret document. At the end of the day, the Final Register will be made available to all the Political Parties, as per the law and normal practice.
The preparation of the Register is a human endeavour. There are bound to be mistakes. This is not the first time the Commission has recorded mistakes during registration of voters and compilation of the Voters Register. This has been the case since 1992. The issues range from missing names, swapped photos and gender, wrong additions or omitted names, et cetera. This is not new.
The Exhibition of the Provisional Voters Register, as designed by law, is meant to correct mistakes. The law provides for inclusion of missing names, removal of names that should not be on the register after due process, removal of names that should not be on the Exclusions List after due process, correction of gender, proper placement of voters in their Polling Stations, et cetera. This is exactly what the Commission is doing, as mandated by law.
Since 2020, this Commission has made painstaking efforts to clean the Register using a four-pronged approach: through District Electoral Officers, Exhibition Officers, Voters who go to check their details at Exhibition Centres and IT Staff. This was not the case before 2020 and this has ensured a credible Register that reflects those who qualify to be on it, while no qualified Voter is left out.
The Public may recall that in 2020 the same negative propaganda was launched about the Register during Exhibition. The Commission used the issues that came up during the 2020 Exhibition to clean the Register to ensure it was credible. As a result, there was not a single complaint that came through about the Register during and after the 2020 Elections. At the end of the day, the 2020 Elections were rated very highly by citizens as well as local and international election observers.
We call upon the Public to reject statements that the Register is not fit for the 2024 Elections or that it is incurably defective. The Register is robust and credible. At the end of the day, the Final Certified Register will reflect corrections of all identified errors.
Who gives out a document and make it openly accessible to all if the intention is to add on illegal persons? It is important to note that the Political Parties have copies of the 2020 Register, 2023 Register, records of the daily registration reports from the 2024 Limited Voters Registration and Mop-Up Registration Exercises. This is a transparent and inclusive process that is not exclusive to the EC. Therefore, unless they can show any proof, those alleging that the Commission is trying to cook data should be ignored.
The Commission reassures the Public and its stakeholders that the anomalies detected through the Exhibition Exercise and their correction do not in any way affect the validity of the Voters Register and the ability of valid voters to vote on Election Day.
As a Commission we continue to demonstrate and reflect the values of transparency, integrity and fairness in all our operations. We are fully mindful that the Voters Register is the bedrock and foundation of an Election.
We are well aware that a credible Voters Register is sine qua non for a transparent, peaceful and fair election. The Commission is committed to conducting and delivering free, fair, transparent, peaceful, credible, and inclusive Elections in December 2024. We entreat the General Public to support the Commission for successful General Elections in 2024.
We thank you for your attention.
Electoral Commission: Transparency and Accountability in Motion
Thank you.