New voters register not solution — JOY, Apaloo

An independent presidential candidate in the 2012 election, Mr Jacob Osei Yeboah (JOY), and the leader of the Independent People’s Party (IPP), Mr Kofi Apaloo, have called for a lasting solution to the problems associated with the credibility of the current voters register.

They called on all stakeholders, including the Electoral Commission and all political parties not to derail efforts at fostering unity within the country.

Speaking in separate interviews on the need for an imminent and efficient way to clean the voters register, the two underscored the need to develop a National Electronic Data Register (NEDR) after which an overhaul of the National Identification Authority (NIA) could be effected to help the country attain a credible voters register for the 2016 polls.

Background

There have been calls from political and non-political groups for a new or an early cleansing of the voters register for the 2016 elections.

This call is predicated on the Supreme Court’s ruling on the 2012 election petition. It has further emerged that the existing voters register had allowed carriers of the NHIS card and foreigners to register.  These examples among others, raised issues of credibility and trust in the process and, thus, a national discourse is needed to agree on a common solution before the 2016 election.

Electronic Data Register

Mr Yeboah reiterated that the solution to that was to develop a National Electronic Data Register (NEDR) which would track a person’s life cycle through birth, education, religion, profession, business, property and death.

He said the EC, NIA, the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD),the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC),the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), the Births and Deaths Registry etc. were key institutions that could also benefit from NEDR as a planning tool.

“The EC would only need to access such a register which can extrapolate the population that will be 18 years and above in each polling station and plan budgetary and logistical allocations for each election”, he stated.

This, according to Mr Yeboah, could prevent perpetual pitfalls during registrations by the EC for subsequent elections. “Opening and closing the voters register seems like the norm, but it is archaic and hugely wasteful”, he said.

JOY stated that the method of data capturing by the EC was erroneous, and like all electronic input,the garbage in garbage out philosophy held. Once voters’ bio identities were not tagged to their residential addresses, the said problem raised by the NPP could not be eliminated. The nation would then have to live with creating new voters’ register every election year. This is not acceptable, he stated.

Mr Yeboah also noted that since the voters register was not maintainable, those who passed on in the course of the year would still have their names in the register. This would always require human manual deletion and defeats the benefit of the high cost of biometric voters register. The dead can always bloat the register.

Waste of resources

Relatedly, Mr Kofi Apaloo declared “it will be a waste of resources to compile a new register since the factors that caused it to bloat are still around.”

He insisted that a compilation of a new voters register would be a waste of the nation’s scarce resources if the fundamentals that made the register not to be credible were not first addressed.

The party, therefore, cautioned against the compilations of a new voters register without a reliable national identification system and central data base.

Database

Mr Apaloo pointed out that the call by the NPP was misplaced and would not guarantee a free and fair election in 2016.

Rather, he stressed the need to create a central database where all identity cards could be generated.

He said for example that immediately a child was born and the child was issued  an identification number, whenever the child turned 18 years, the database would show that that person ought to be issued with a voters identity card.

Mr Apaloo, therefore, called for a central data base and an effective addressing system that could prevent foreigners and minors from registering.

He said ID cards could become de-facto documents for public transactions and eliminate or reduce the number of minors and foreigners finding their names on the register.

Fundamental factors

Mr Apaloo said currently, the fundamental factors that bloat the register exit. He,therefore, asked that the EC and the state be spared the trouble and waste of funds in compiling a new register.

Mr Apaloo also said he was against auditing the current register since it could cause panic and confusion since the rules to follow to clean it could be cumbersome.

Again, political parties would resist the removal of some names from the register if it could go against them.

Building democracy

Mr Apaloo said the government should take a serious look and consider funding political parties in terms of logistics and capacity building.

He said the EC must also be lenient with the so called “small political parties” and not rush to punish them for not functioning effectively. He said the way forward to grow our multi-party democracy was to encourage the small parties to grow and become formidable.

He therefore said the call for all political parties to be up and doing was in the right direction.