53 Days to elections: EC begins ballot printing Oct 17

The certified voters register for the December 2024 elections will be ready in the first week of next month, the Electoral Commission (EC) has announced.

The EC also plans to commence the printing of the ballot papers for the elections from tomorrow.

The Chairperson of the EC, Jean Adukwei Mensa, who announced this at an Inter-party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting in Accra, said political parties would have access to the certified register by the first week of November.

“It is important to note that the commission will provide the political parties with the certified copy of the final voters register by the first week of November, 2024,” the EC chairperson said.

IPAC meeting

The EC used yesterday’s IPAC meeting to update the political parties and the public on its continuous efforts to clean the electoral register.

It was in fulfilment of an assurance by the commission at a similar IPAC meeting two weeks ago to clean the electoral roll of discrepancies which were identified during the nationwide exhibition exercise.

Ballot printing

On the printing of ballot papers which starts from tomorrow, Mrs Mensa explained that it would be based on the total number of registered voters, as available in the revised provisional voters register, with an additional two per cent to take care of any shortfalls.

“In arriving at the ballot statistics, we took into account the total number of registered voters on the revised provisional voters register (PVR) and added a  two per cent margin.

We are confident that the methodology applied will not result in any shortfalls,” the EC boss said.

Based on the statistics in the revised PVR presented by the EC at the IPAC meeting, the commission is expected to print 18,772,251 ballot papers, which represent the total number of registered voters, with an additional two per cent of the figure.

Mrs Mensa gave an assurance that based on the methodology adopted by the EC in the printing of ballot papers, there would be enough ballot papers to successfully conduct the elections.

“In 2020, when we prepared a totally new voters register for the general election, the turnout was 79 per cent, it was not 100 per cent.

Therefore, we are very confident that this methodology of using the total number of registered voters on the provisional voters register, although it is not final, plus a two per cent increase will ensure that we have adequate supply of ballot papers ahead of the elections,” she said. 

The EC chairperson said the commission did not envisage “a marked departure from the revised provisional register that we present to you today”.

Online exhibition

Throwing more light on the online exhibition exercise, Mrs Mensa explained that voters could go to the EC’s website to check their voter registration details, free of charge from yesterday to Saturday, October 19.

Already, she said, the commission had made available soft copies of the revised PVR to all the political parties.

The political parties were also provided with hard drives containing the revised PVR at the IPAC meeting.

“Additionally, all parties will be provided with a template on which to document any discrepancies they may have with the revised PVR.

The idea behind this approach is to afford all stakeholders a second opportunity to review their details once again and report any discrepancies they may find to the EC to enable us to fix it,” Mrs Mensa said.

The EC chairperson added that the re-exhibition of the PVR had never happened before, saying: “This is the first time – it demonstrates that we are a listening commission and a commission open to receive feedback for the betterment of its stakeholders”.

However, Mrs Mensa warned that after Saturday (October 19), the EC would not receive any complaints regarding discrepancies on the electoral roll.

“We are confident that with this approach we will have a near perfect Final Voters Register ahead of the December elections,” she said 

The EC chairperson further emphasised that the commission was not moving away from the manual process to an electronic means of exhibiting the PVR, but rather the online system was an additional opportunity for people to verify their details.

Court cases

Some of the political parties raised concerns about the EC rolling out activities and programmes in spite of court cases challenging the disqualification of some presidential aspirants.

The Director of Operations for the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Divine Nkrumah, said the EC risked causing financial loss to the state if it went ahead to print the ballot papers, and the disqualified candidates won their court cases, and had to be added to the ballot papers.

In response, Mrs Mensa said the EC could not stop its activities in preparation for the general election.

“The evidence exists to the fact that those who were disqualified did not fulfil their obligations. I do not believe that the commission should be tied down or the nation should be tied down to the court cases, and wait until the court cases are heard before we move on,” the EC boss said.