EC TO COMMENCE LIMITED VOTER REGISTRATION: THE FACTS

The Electoral Commission of Ghana at a press briefing on Thursday, August 17, 2023, announced new dates for a Limited Voters Registration Exercise. The exercise will be held from September 12th to October 2nd, 2023 and seeks to register over one million new voters by the close of the registration exercise. News about the Limited Voter's registration exercise has received a mixture of reactions from Ghanaians. While many have applauded the initiative by the EC, others, particularly the main opposition party, the New Democratic Congress (NDC) and four other political parties have filed a lawsuit against the EC over the limited voter registration exercise. In the suit, they explained that the EC’s decision to have the exercise at the district offices of the EC will disenfranchise eligible voters and instead they propose that the exercise should be held at the electoral area level as it will allow all eligible voters to register.

Furthermore, the Electoral Commission at the recent Inter-Party Advisory Committee received complaints from some political parties to reconsider its decision to move forward with the Limited voter registration at the district offices of the EC.

The political parties cited issues such as transportation constraints, eligible voters without Ghana cards or a passport and some living in the hinterlands. 

They appealed to the EC as part of its mandate to ensure that the process is participatory and decentralised, It should include if not all then some electoral areas in a cluster form as done in the past and if they are unable to set up 1,500 registration centres as done in 2019, they should maintain the status quo.

As part of the recommendations, they further stressed the EC could use 7 days to conduct the registration exercise at the electoral areas and another 7 days to do a mop-up exercise at their district offices to save them time and cost.

It is important to note that the NDC boycotted an IPAC meeting on 21st April 2021 and they have since not attended any IPAC.

The EC’s Limited Voter's Registration exercise is backed by a Constitutional Instrument (CI 91) which has been deliberated on and passed by Parliament earlier this year.

In the comments section of the social media pages of some media houses, a cross-section of Ghanaians thought that the registration exercise was a step in the right direction as many persons who are 18 years and above can have the opportunity to also partake in the 2024 general elections.

Others were in total disagreement with the registration exercise and accused the EC of trying to flood the voter registers with ghost names, and unqualified persons to rig the 2024 elections.

Analysis

Above is an analysis of a cross-section of views from TV3, GH One TV, Metro TV, and Citi FM on the issues surrounding the limited voter registration exercise.  

In three hours, a total of 1,133 comments were recorded across the social media pages of the four media houses sampled. Out of the 1,133 views, 2 commenters were in support of the EC’s Limited Voters registration exercise and the decision to have the registration at the district level, 2 commenters were neither for nor against the exercise but rather commended the EC for considering the eligible voters and in the same vein advised the EC to consider the persons living in the hinterlands 26 comments however were against the EC’s action and 1,102 were unrelated comments that primarily promoted their products and services.

Observations

1.    Viewership on the social media pages was high but the number of comments related to the matter being discussed was low.

2.    During 1 of the 4 shows, transmission of the live feed was interrupted intermittently. Also, the majority of the comments on the various platforms were salutations to the host and guests, advertisements of products and services and other issues unrelated to the matter being discussed.

Conclusion

Based on our analysis, we are of the view that a section of the views of Ghanaians sampled strongly disagree with the EC’s decision to conduct the Limited Voter Registration Exercise at the district level as they believed that many eligible voters due to transportation constraints will be disenfranchised.