The Ghana Electoral Commission (E.C.) And The 30,000 Registrants To Be Removed From The Electoral Roll

Dear Madam:

Since we introduced the biometric registration and identification system into our electoral processes about a decade ago, the Ghanaian electorate has been fairly well educated about what the biometric identification system is, that it is pointless to try to register more than once in any registration exercise, you would easily be found out. It is criminal in the first place to indulge in such an act, the electorate is aware of that. So that, if there are some miscreants who still want to take the risk to indulge in double registration, I expect the number to be very minimal, not the tens of thousands being reported by the EC.

The EC, after the main registration exercise, mentioned a small number whose application had been challenged at the point of registration, and that there was going to be an adjudication on their application by an electoral committee if they were eligible to vote or not. We never heard any details from any of the adjudication exercise, only to be told recently, out of the blue, some tens of thousands of people, who fell under the category of challenged applicants were being expunged from the electoral roll. That was not transparent enough.

I expected the EC to have first published a list of all the challenged applicants by polling stations, constituencies, districts and regions for public verification. Then after the adjudication exercise, publish another list of successful applicants and those whose applications were rejected. This would have been more acceptable to all contesting parties and would not have been raising any eyebrows about the EC up to something untoward.

Similarly, the EC should have been publishing a comprehensive list of all applicants who were determined to have had multiple registrations, and the list should have been by polling station, constituency, etc. This would have afforded all interested parties to examine that list to ascertain its veracity. Since the provisional registrar was fraught with an uncountable number of bizarre anomalies, like thousands of missing names, duplication of PIN numbers, swapping of biometric data, etc., we should not overrule the possibility of a double registration of an application coming from the EC itself, from the very human and administrative errors which caused all those horrendous anomalies in the Provisional Voters Register.

It would have been transparent and fair to all interested parties, including the affected applicants, to publish the names of all those alleged to be culpable of double registration by polling stations, constituencies, districts and regions. To just arbitrarily expunge the names of prospective voters without any verifiably adduced evidence, and just on mere allegations of a double registration is not being fair to the applicant. It could be described as a deliberate ploy to disenfranchise some people. Now, the minority National Democratic Congress (NDC) are claiming most of the deleted names from the register are from their strongholds. This allegation, if true, obviously does not augur well for a free, fair and transparent elections, and is a recipe for chaos.

Before the Provisional Voters Register exhibition, the EC announced categorically that 6,000 registrants had been removed from the electoral role for double registration and flouting other electoral rules. Even with that, I thought that figure was absurd because the Biometric Registration Devices for the registration exercise, connected to a central data bank automatically should detect any attempt at double registration, delete one name and keep the other.

The biometric electronic system works just like when you are signing onto Facebook or a Gmail account. As soon as you enter a name which is already existing in the global worldwide web, the system instantly rejects your application, and you are asked to take a new name. You could be rejected a number of times before you come up with a unique name which does not exist at all in the worldwide network.

So, for 6,000 registrants to be accused of double registration, hence, they were ineligible to vote in the December elections was untenable, in the first place, what with the biometric technology being employed.

After the exhibition of the Provisional Voters Register, which was fraught with countless bizarre and inexplicable anomalies, like thousands of missing names; multiple duplications of biometric data, like one face for a hundred different identities; multiple duplication of PIN numbers, which the EC attributed to human error and administrative lapses, the EC gave the fullest assurance to the people of Ghana that everything was under control and that they were going to rectify, at the shortest time, all the errors and anomalies which had emerged with the Provisional Register.

I assumed the correction of the Provisional Register was going to be the preoccupation of the EC after the exhibition; the EC, however, contrary to all practical reasons and their own promise of not carrying out any more registrations ahead of the 2020 Elections, surprisingly went ahead and conducted a two-day supplementary registration exercise at their district and regional offices, supposedly to capture those who missed the main registration exercise for one reason or the other, for people who had just turned 18 and were of voting age and Ghanaians who had been stranded outside Ghana because of the closure of our airport and borders due to the Pandemic and had just flown into the country with the airport now opened.

The numbers which turned up for this supplementary exercise was relatively minimal and could not in any way compare with the 17+ million, or so, who registered in the main exercise in August. So, how could the 6,000 registrants who originally were said to have undertaken double registration, therefore, were ineligible to vote, now have ballooned to 30,000+. This number is not mathematically probable nor logically accurate. There is something seriously wrong somewhere. Have the EC not arrived at this figure by a deliberate or inadvertent error again as it happened with the error-filled Provisional Register?

So, what is the EC now telling us, that 30,000 registrants were going to be removed from the Voters Register, that they were disqualified to vote for double registration and other electoral infractions, like being identified as not being Ghanaian citizens? This figure is astronomical, in my candid opinion, and, like I have argued, mathematically incorrect. It must be properly investigated. Even one vote could make a big difference in any election, let alone 30,000.

The peace and stability of our country is directly tethered to how transparently, freely and fairly the EC conducts the upcoming elections. With 30,000+ names going to be expunged from the electoral roll, would certainly be a recipe for anarchy on election day, as I have already intimated. People who had defied the dangers of COVID-19 and all odds, stayed in endless queues to register for the December Elections would now get to their polling stations to exercise their franchise only to be told their name was not in the register, therefore, they could not vote.

This would be a deliberate attempt at disenfranchising a people and it could degenerate to anarchy. I would ask, then, what was the purpose of the Provisional Voters Register Exhibition, which the EC described as successful? The Provisional Voters Register did not capture your name for double registration. Why should you now be included in a list of people to be deleted from the Register, ostensibly for double registration and other electoral infractions? I wager my last Cedi that most of the registrants to be expunged from the electoral roll would challenge the EC they never indulged in any double registration or other infractions.

The 30,000 number is so huge it is difficult for me to comprehend and really believe that many people were involved in double registration. Perhaps they were not, the EC’s own “human errors,” “administrative lapses” and technical errors probably must have accounted for that, generating these names as double registrants. Why do I say so? It is because the supplementary registration took place at the EC district and regional offices. So, how was it possible for individuals to be indulging in double registration at those offices?

It smacks of some absurdity. The culprits would have easily been recognized if an individual came around to register for the second time. For somebody to be able to indulge in a double registration during the supplementary registration, that individual would have to travel to another region’s EC office or another district’s EC office within the same region.

With the long distances involved and the high cost of travelling in Ghana, I doubt very much anybody would go those extreme lengths just to be able to have a second registration. And for what purpose? All Ghanaians were educated to know the Biometric Verification Device easily recognizes a double registration, so why would a registrant want to do a double registration, knowing very well they are going to be detected? If there were adventurists who wanted to risk it, they would have been just a handful, certainly, not 6,000 or 30,000.

The main registration took place in some 33.000 polling stations. One constituency alone could have many polling stations. Given that it was, indeed, true people indulged in double registration, then it could have only taken place during the main registration exercise when it was relatively easy to move from one polling station to the other, and not during the supplementary registration exercise which took place at the EC regional and district offices.

So, it is grievously odd for the EC to now be claiming 30,000 names were going to be expunged from the electoral roll, for double registration, when the EC had categorically stated previously that 6,000 registrants had been disqualified from voting for the offence of double registration, and their names removed from the register.

The EC came out with that figure of 6,000 after the main registration exercise and before the Provisional Voters Register was put on public exhibition. I am not convinced one-bit about this new figure of 30,000 and it should be challenged by the electorate and the political parties. I believe it is an erroneous creation of the EC’s own sloppiness, I am afraid. If not rectified immediately, it has the igniting potential to throw the December 7 elections into disarray and conflict.

I recommend a few things the EC could immediately do not to jeopardize the peace and stability of our country, and to have an absolutely free, fair and transparent elections.

The EC should immediately make public the roaster of the names to be expunged from the Voters Register, by publishing it on their website and in the national newspapers, for open verification. The names should be listed according to their polling stations, constituencies, etc. Anything short of that would be unfair to the affected registrants, who, for all you know, never indulged in any double registration; the accusation being levelled at them rather being the doing of the EC itself, the very technical and human errors which we blatantly witnessed with the Provisional Voters Register.

Since the Provisional Register was fraught with too many inexplicable errors for human understanding, we could not afford to take the EC just on their mere assurance that everything was under control and that they were going to rectify all the anomalies in the Provisional Register. They did not have to have rushed into printing the Final Voters Register, which I understand, copies have already been handed out to all the contesting political parties. Appropriately, the EC should have put on public display again, at least, for a few days, the rectified register with all the supposed corrections before coming out with the final register for the parties. If because of time constraints, it was not possible to have had a public exhibition again of the revised Provisional Voters Register, at least, digital versions could have first been made available to the parties for their prior examination. November 11, 2020, which was when the Final Voters Register was supposed to be given to the political parties contravenes the EC’s own by-law of making available to the political parties the final copy of the Voters Register 60 days before the elections. Now, with barely a couple of weeks to December 7, if errors are still detected in the Voters Register, as I am being told there are, what can the parties do to have them corrected? It has already come to light that about 60% of the Security Personnel to be posted on duty on voting day have not been captured in the Special Voting List. Similar complaints have been made about Media Personnel who would be out in the field, covering the elections, that many of them are not included in the Special Voting List. With the Media Personnel, their association, Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), has admitted responsibility of not forwarding the names of all their members on assignment that D-day to the EC in time to be captured in the Special Voters Register. My attention has also been drawn to thousands of the temporary staff the EC has hired and would be serving in different roles as Polling Assistants and Electoral Officers on Election Day also not being captured in the Special Voting Register. Are all these many people going to be disenfranchised from voting through no fault of theirs? If they should leave their outposts, even for a short time, to go and vote at the polling stations where they were registered, assuming they are not too far away, it could easily expose many polling stations where these electoral officials are supposed to be manning to all kinds of manipulations by unscrupulous individuals. And this could affect the credibility of the elections. Any registered candidate who has been disenfranchised from voting can also easily place a legal injunction on the whole Election 2020, throwing it into jeopardy.

The EC would be incurring big trouble for itself, which would have been easily averted if there had been a prior display of the corrected Provisional Voters Register before the EC came out with a final print of the Voters Register. Now, the harm is already done. Special voting takes place on Tuesday, December 1, 2020. What would be the way forward?

I suggest the EC should give a special identifiable permit to all officials supposed to be on duty, but whose names are missing from the Special Voters Register, to enable them vote on Dec. 7 at the polling stations where they are stationed. These officials should be allowed to vote only after an hour or two into the voting session, not at the very onset, which could arouse unnecessary suspicion. Observers present should make sure these Polling Assistants, Electoral Officers, Security Personnel and Media Personnel voting at their polling stations of duty are not listed on the Special Voting List and are casting only one ballot.

Talking of military deployment on the day of elections, to provide security and maintain order, the EC must insist that no military personal goes wearing those camouflage Ninja face mask, covering the whole head, with perforations just for the eyes. It would be reminiscent of the infamous episode at the Ayawaso West Wogon Constituency and would instil fear in the electorate, preventing them to come out to vote. Those masks make the military wearers look more like terrorists. We are not at war. We are only going to exercise our franchise as responsible citizens and there should be peace and decorum at the polling stations, not intimidation.

The Minority Leader in Parliament, Haruna Iddrisu, has accused government of conniving to recruit 1,800 untrained policemen for Dec. 7. I do not know the veracity of this claim by the Minority Leader, but if it is true, it must be condemned outright. I would strongly urge the EC to boldly resist any government and the IGP schematization to infiltrate the professional ranks of the security personnel with these untrained policemen, or, we risk marring the beauty of the Dec. 7 Elections. Ayawaso West Wogon is still so fresh in our memories.

The EC would also have to invite all the IT experts of the various political parties, together with the EC’s own IT experts, to take a forensic study of the EC’s IT infrastructure to find out exactly what went wrong to have generated that questionable Provisional Voters Register. They have to get to the bottom of the problem and agree on a common solution satisfactory to all the interested parties. Taking the EC by its word alone is simply not enough, what with the enormity of the errors in the Provisional Register. There is no guarantee whatsoever that what led to the highly-flawed Provisional Voters Register would not have occurred again if for the upcoming December, results would have to be transmitted electronically. I, hereby, must commend the EC for sensing danger ahead with their electronic system and deciding that the ballots would have to be collated manually at the polling stations, then at the constituency, district and regional levels, and, finally, transported to the EC Headquarters in Accra, within a stipulated time frame. This arrangement, I believe, would ensure more transparency and fairness. It is a known fact that in 2016, the EC electronic system was hacked into by some unscrupulous persons. In the course of the transmission of results from the regions, Ms. Charlotte Osei, then the Electoral Commissioner, came out to announce publicly that their system had been compromised, hence, they could not rely any longer on the incoming electronically transmitted results. Till date, there has not been any forensic research into what exactly happened, let alone, a report of the findings. Yet, we are gearing up for another crucial elections. It is imperative the EC opens its doors for a thorough inspection of its IT infrastructure before December 7. It would be magnanimous on its path and it would be dispelling all notions, whether real or imagined, of attempts by the EC to rig the Election for the ruling NPP and the incumbent President, H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

The EC’s timetable to announce the verdict of the elections within 24 hrs. is a little problematic. It would be too rushed and has the propensity to get things not perfectly right. It could also raise unnecessary anxiety and heighten the state of tension in the country, considering the already-high stakes of the 2020 Elections, when the results are being delayed from some unexpected eventuality. I have been voting consistently ever since the inception of the 4^th Republic and based on past experiences, it is impossible to announce our election results within 24 hrs. There are many instances of multiple recounts of ballots at collation centres when results are disputed and this is a typical cause of delay of releasing election results in time. There are also many remote settlements, far removed from regional collation centres, some which are only accessible by boat, often called “overseas,” have often delayed the release of election results. It would have been more prudent if the EC had rather announced that it was going to expedite the release of election results, earlier than in the past, without being too specific. The 24-hour timeline is virtually impossible to attain except results are transmitted electronically. Already, suspicions are arising about the EC’s proffered 24-hour timeline to announce both the Presidential and Parliamentary results. Rumours have it that the EC plan to collate results manually and transport them from the constituency collation centres, to the district and regional collation centres, hence to the EC Headquarters in Accra is only a ruse to divert attention from the EC’s real intent, which is to collate and transmit results electronically; that this informs the EC’s surreptitious decision to announce the Election Results within 24 hrs.

Once the rule of the game is to collate manually and transmit results manually, all parties in the game would have to strictly abide by that. Nobody should accept any results which would be transmitted electronically.

On the issue of Spoilt Ballots, previous elections have revealed on many occasions the Spoilt Ballots totalled more than the votes of all the minority parties put together. This is a matter of great concern. One of the rules for rejecting a ballot paper was, if it carried any extra finger print on the ballot paper. It has come to light that in certain communities, unscrupulous EC officials counting the ballot papers have deliberately left finger print stains on the ballot papers of votes going for a party or a candidate they are opposed to, to render the ballot invalid. The ink is often applied to their hair to enable them carry out this devious practice unnoticed, during the process of sorting out the ballot papers, prior to the count. Despite all the education, the issue of Spoilt or Rejected Ballots is on the ascendency. It reached astronomical proportions in the last General Election in 2016. There is the joke that the huge numbers of the Spoilt Ballots could easily constitute a political party. Vigilance of party observers at the various polling stations is key to eradicating this canker from our body politic. I would also suggest that the EC changes this law governing the validity of the ballot paper. The ballot paper should only be rejected when an extra thumb print is CAREFULLY placed in the box next to a party or an individual, and not cursorily anywhere else on the ballot paper. Please, note my emphasis on CAREFULLY.

On the whole, there has been blatant inconsistencies and discrepancies in figures the EC has been putting forward regarding the electoral role since the mass registration exercise for a new Voters Register ended in August. I am surprised these inconsistencies and discrepancies are lost on the political parties and the electorate.

It is probably because they are so preoccupied with preparations for the General Elections, campaigning, getting their manifesto messages across, etc. Reviewing the Provisional Voters Register Exhibition, for instance, Madam Jean Mensa stated that the number of Ghanaians who registered for the mass General Registration Exercise was 17.07 million.

There was a huge discrepancy between this figure and an earlier one of 16.9 Million, which the same Electoral Commissioner, Jean Mensa, had put forth at the end of the mass Registration Exercise. We were told earlier before the Provisional Voters Register Exhibition that 6,000 registrants had been expunged from the electoral role for the offense of double registration.

I expected the final roaster of registered voters after the de-duplication to have been less than the 16.9 million. The EC never accounted to us for the hike of figures to 17.07 million after even having deleted 6,000 names from the register. Then the EC embarked on the two-day supplementary registration exercise. I reckon, we were never told the exact outcome of that registration exercise; how many people were captured, etc.

The registration exercise took place at the EC’s district and regional offices. To which polling stations and constituencies were those registrants posted to, and what was the determining factor for that? Were those captured in the two-day supplementary registration added to the 17.07 million which was the figure from the EC before the supplementary exercise was embarked on? I expected the final electoral role to have been hitting about 18 to 19 million. I was taken aback when the EC published the Final Voters Register with just 17,029,000 million as the number of registered voters. It should have been more.

Back to the substantive issue of my letter, the 30,000 to be removed from the Voters Register. In cases of alleged double registration, I would humbly plead with the Electoral Commission to tender justice with mercy, just for peace to prevail in the upcoming elections. I urge the EC to kindly restore those names to make them eligible to vote. At least, the Biometric Verification Device made it impossible for them to register twice, if, indeed, it is true that is what they attempted doing, which is an illegality, of course.

Finally, the wild belief out there is, you are a dye-in-the-wool New Patriotic Party (NPP) supporter and all your deputies and staff at the EC Headquarters – from the very top to the bottom – are all known die-hard NPP adherents, and that you would certainly want to do everything possible to keep your party and its Flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo, in power, by rigging the Elections in their favour. This is a genuine concern for everybody, especially, the leading opposition party, the National Democratic Congress.

My brotherly cautionary advice to you, Jean Mensa, is, rise above all political considerations and limitations, and do what is right; live above reproach and do not pander to anybody or any political party’s bidding. Be the fair, just and an impartial judge in this great undertaking as the Electoral Commissioner of our great nation, Ghana, supervising the upcoming General Elections.

Conduct an absolutely Free, Fair and Transparent Election and posterity would always judge you kindly, singing praises unto you. On the other hand, if you conduct a partial and rigged Election, I can assure you, posterity would never forgive you; you would be banished to the stinking hole of condemnation. You have given assurances and reassurances to the people of Ghana that you will be a fair judge in the 2020 Elections and that you cannot rig the Elections. You have even said it is against your Christian principle and conscience to do so. Keep strictly to your word!

Wishing you good health! All the best with the December 7 General Elections! God bless!

LONG LIVE GHANA!!!

Thank you.

Yours faithfully,

Rikki Wemega-Kwawu

Takoradi

November 27, 2020

Rikki Wemega-Kwawu is an internationally renowned Ghanaian contemporary artist and writer, born in 1959. He is a keen observer and critical commentator of the Ghanaian political and social scene. He lives and works in Takoradi.