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New Voters’ Registration: 2020 Should Be The Last Time – CODEO To EC
The Coalition for Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) has called on the Electoral Commission (EC) to put a stop to the periodic new voters’ registration exercise it always conducts.
CODEO, as part of its recommendations from its Post-Election Stakeholders Review Workshop on Ghana’s 2020 Presidential and General Elections, issued on Friday, May 7, 2021, said the exercise is costly 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.”
CODEO urged the EC to collaborate with the National Identification Authority (NIA) to enable it capture Ghanaians who turn 18 onto the current register.
According to CODEO, the said harmonization is capable of “replacing the process of compiling a new or limited voters’ register from time to time.”
“The 2020 voters register should be the last register to be compiled from scratch. Going forward, the EC should 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.”
