EC yet to lay C.I. before Parliament for 2024 elections
The Electoral Commission (EC) is yet to lay before Parliament a draft Constitutional Instrument (C.I) titled: Public Elections (Registration of Voters) Regulations, 2021, expected to regulate continuous voter registration, the Ranking Member on Parliament’s Subsidiary Legislation Committee, Andy Kwame Appiah-Kubi, has said.
He stated that at a meeting with the EC and the Attorney-General the committee made some proposals to be included in the new C.I before it was laid before Parliament.
He said the committee asked the EC to amend a portion of the C.I that sought to make the Ghana Card the sole form of identification for eligible voters who wanted to get onto the electoral register to include the guarantor’s system.
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On the inclusion of the guarantors system, Mr Appiah-Kubi explained that the proposal was for the reduction of the number of guarantors from 10 to a figure, which was yet to be agreed on.
Mr Appiah-Kubi, who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Asante-Akim North in the Ashanti Region, told the Daily Graphic that the committee asked the EC to make those who were already on the electoral roll as guarantors and not those who would be registered fresh as had been the case previously.
He stated that until the amendments were done the EC could not lay the new C.I before Parliament.
“So far as the committee is concerned, no C.I on the continuous voter registration has been laid before Parliament,” he stated.
Mr Appiah-Kubi discounted the news making rounds that a new C.I to regulate the voter registration that sought to make the Ghana Card the sole source for the continuous registration had been laid before Parliament through the Subsidiary Legislation of Parliament.
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The new C.I by the EC expected to regulate the continuous voter registration has been a thorny one with stakeholders in the electoral process, especially the main opposition political party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), raising concerns over the decision to make the Ghana Card the sole source document for identification for prospective voters.
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Relatedly, the former chair of the EC, Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, has also called on the election management body not to use the Ghana Card as the only source document for the continuous voter registration as that could disfranchise millions of qualified electorate.
He said with many Ghanaians finding it difficult to get their Ghana Cards, making it the only form of identification for voter registration was against electoral inclusivity, fairness and justice.”