The Director of Electoral Services at the Electoral Commission (EC), Dr. Serebuor Quaicoe has revealed that mid-May 2020 has been earmarked to start compiling the controversial new voters’ register for the December 2020 general elections.
Speaking in an interview monitored by Whatsup News, the EC director explained that based on the 2012 experience, registration officers will spend 10 days in each polling station.
According to him, the estimated 10 days should be enough to cover the more than 16 million Ghanaians set to register in the voters’ register.
“10 days at polling stations from our 2012 experience is enough to capture everyone; it is tried and tested,” the EC Director of Electoral Services stressed.
Dr Quaicoe spoke about the difficulty the EC is already facing in cleaning the register of over one million ghost names due to opposition by key stakeholders.
According to him, the new system will be devoid of multiple registration and impersonation as has allegedly characterised the current register.
ahead of the crucial elections in 2020.
“The current machines and data we have are not as efficient as we expected so a new register will happen,” he added.
The EC has insisted on compiling the new register despite massive opposition to the plan by some civil society groups and opposition political parties.
The Ghanaian Parliament recently authorised a release of about GHC 400 million to the EC to go ahead with the new system.
The election regulator led by Jean Mensah claims that the current voters’ register is bloated and can only be cleaned by compiling an entirely new one.
However, it was that same register that the EC used to recently conduct two successful elections, The District Assemblies election and the referendum for the six new regions. Indeed, independent election observers CODEO issued a report that the biometric system and the register functioned over 90 per cent accurate.
The Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) which recently condemned the EC’s plan, has said, the reasons given by the EC to justify a new register is not tenable.
Meanwhile, a counter group of some 13 political parties including the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has backed the EC, insisting the new register is the panacea for free and fair elections.