Chairperson of Ghana’s Electoral Commission, Jean Mensa, has emphasized that the electoral body’s proposed constitutional amendment, which would make the Ghana Card the only form of voter registration, is not intended to deny Ghanaians the right to vote.
Speaking to the media on Friday at the EC’s headquarters, Jean Mensa revealed that the Commission is not interested in maintaining the guarantor system, which she claimed has outlived its purpose.
As a result, the Ghana card has been chosen as the only form of identity for voting. According to Jean Mensa, the use of the Ghana Card is the safest approach to guarantee the accuracy of Ghana’s electoral roll.
“With regard to the CI that is before Parliament, we do not intend to put back the guarantor system because we do not believe that the guarantor system has worked for us. Thirty years ago when we took this journey, and we did not have a Ghana Card, it was only proper that we adopt a system that would ensure that people who didn’t have any documentation could register and thirty years on, we now have the Ghana Card, and we must rely on it, and it is the surest way to ensure the integrity of our register.”
She claimed that the Commission’s desire to “conduct credible, transparent, fair, and peaceful elections,” which was developed out of the problems the Commission encountered during the registration process in 2020, served as the inspiration for the proposed CI that is currently before Parliament.
“As a commission that is determined to conduct credible, transparent, fair and peaceful elections, we were keen to establish and uphold the integrity of the foundational document which is the voters’ register, hence our proposal to use the Ghana Card as the sole document for identification of a person’s citizenship and or age.”
“Our experience with the 2020 Registration Exercise showed that several minors and foreigners using the window of the guarantor system found their way onto our roll.
To rid the register of minors and foreigners in 2020, the Electoral Commission established the District Registration Review Committees (DRRCS) which worked for several weeks to delete the names of minors and foreigners from the Register. It took substantial time and effort to expunge the names of illegal persons from our [electoral] roll. We challenged some 40,000 minors and foreigners and expunged some 15,000 persons from the Register.”
