The newly compiled 2020 voters register should be the last register to be compiled from scratch, participants in a high-level Post-Elections Stakeholders Review Workshop to assess the conduct of Ghana’s 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections have recommended.

They have subsequently urged the Electoral Commission (EC) to collaborate with the National Identification Authority (NIA) to create an integrated system for identifying current voters and also for registering qualified individuals who turn 18 years.

The three-day workshop, which was organised by the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO), attracted representations from the EC, the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), the National Peace Council (NPC), the National Media Commission (NMC), the Ghana Police Service, the Judiciary, some political parties — the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the Convention People’s Party (CPP) and the Peoples’ National Convention (PNC), representatives from the media, civil society organisations (CSOs) and academia.

Database

To achieve the objective of creating an integrated system, stakeholders agreed that the database of the NIA should be linked with that of the EC to create a harmonised system capable of replacing the process of compiling a new or limited voters register from time to time.

In a communiqué issued at the end of the workshop, the participants further suggested that to help build stakeholder trust, the EC should engage political parties and other key stakeholders, including CSOs, every step of the way towards the harmonisation of the EC and NIA systems.

“The EC should initiate the necessary legal processes to amend the regulations on the registration of voters to back the processes for the integration of the EC data with the NIA in adherence to Article 45 of the 1992 Constitution,” they said.

Continuous registration

As an interim measure, the participants urged the EC to undertake continuous registration of voters who turn 18 years.

“In doing so, the EC should work with political parties to ensure transparency and accountability,” they contended.

Challenges

The participants observed that the periodic exercise of conducting new or limited voters registration was a costly venture to the state and often accompanied by violence, stakeholder mistrust, suspicion, acrimony and tension.

“Other challenges associated with the periodic registration of voters include the registration by unqualified persons (minors and foreigners), the bussing of people from one part of the country to register at different locations, as well as the abuse of the guarantor system,” they observed.