Debate on new Constitutional Instrument: CDD-Ghana suggests use of guarantor system

The Centre for Democratic Development-Ghana (CDD-Ghana) has called on the Electoral Commission (EC) to allow holders of the Ghana Card to vouch for the identity and guarantee the registration of three other prospective voters.

The prospective voters who may be wielding other legal identification documents aside from the Ghana Card, the CDD-Ghana said, must be vouched for under penalty of perjury. 

The Civil Society on governance has made the suggestion on the back of the proposed Constitutional Instrument (C.I) of the Electoral Commission (EC) seeking to make the Ghana Card the sole identification document for continuous voter registration.

A statement released by the CDD-Ghana to buttress its position, explained that making the Ghana Card the sole identity document for registration of voters, when acquiring the card still presented significant challenges for large numbers of people, was arguably an infringement on their rights to be registered and to vote. 

“The current C.I 126 allows for a guarantor to guarantee for up to five people; this could be reduced to three,” the release said.

It added that the National Identification Authority (NIA) itself currently allowed guarantors to vouch for applicants seeking to obtain the Ghana Card, so continuing to allow guarantors in the voter registration system, albeit on a limited and, hopefully, transitional basis, does not represent a divergence from the NIA process.

Designated centres 

The Civil Society Organisation (CSO) also noted that the proposed C.I designated the district offices of the commission as the primary centre for the registration process. 

That, the CDD-Ghana said, does not address the distance issue for new registrants who do not have the resources to travel to the district capital to register when they turn eighteen.

It, therefore, advised the EC to keep the designation of district centres as registration centres for the continuous registration but to also decentralise the registration to the electoral area levels so as to bring it within the physical reach of most citizens before elections to achieve operational flexibility required to deal with the realities on the ground. 

“Let the EC work together with National Commission for Civic Education to keep reminding eligible young people to get registered. At the same time, the current C.I should make provision for limited voter registration as a form of mop-up by the EC,” it added. 

Collaboration 

The statement urged for the pursuance and strengthening of the continuous registration agenda to achieve the long-term objective of drawing on the Ghana Card to update the voter register.

The CDD-Ghana said it recognised the efforts being made by the NIA to properly identify citizens and issue them with national identification cards and as such implored Authority to collaborate with other stakeholders. 

“The CDD-Ghana implores all stakeholders to continue to work together to provide the right conditions and build the trust necessary for achieving a robust national identification system and a credible voter register,” it said.

Recall 

The proposal by the EC to make the Ghana Card the sole document for identification for the continuous limit registration has generated a lot of debate in the country, especially among political parties who are the key stakeholders in the electoral process with the main opposition party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), vehemently opposing it.

The Chairperson of the EC, Jean Mensa, last Tuesday, briefed Parliament’s Committee of the Whole on the new draft of Public Elections (Registration of Voters) Regulations, 2022.

She told the House that the use of the Ghana Card as the source document to prove one’s identity would help to rid the electoral register of foreigners and help guarantee the integrity and credibility of the register.