To prevent minors from being registered, let’s use the Ghana card – EC

The Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC) is insisting that the use of Ghana cards for registration is the only way to rid the voter register of minors and foreigners.

Director of Electoral Services Dr Serebour Quaicoe said despite the opposition’s resolve, EC is convinced the use of Ghana Cards will reduce drastically the number of minors and foreigners on the register.

The Director of Electoral Services at the EC was speaking at a roundtable discussion hosted by the Department of Political Science of the College of Humanities of the University of Ghana, Legon on Thursday, June 15, 2023.

The discussion was on the theme: ‘Electronic Technology and the Future of Election in Ghana’.

Dr Quaicoe expressed the EC’s satisfaction with solving, to a large extent, the issues of impersonation, multiple registration and multiple voting.

“But how do we address the issue of registration of minors and the registration of foreigners?” he queried.

The former Ashanti Region Director of Elections said most often than not, the political parties are heavily behind these infractions but later accuse the EC of allowing such infiltration.

“The Electoral Commission thinks that one way of addressing the issue is to use the Ghana Card,” he stressed.

“There has been a lot of arguments and we are still battling it out and we are still insistent that let us use the Ghana Card so that it will address the issue of minors – because your date of birth is on the Card – and the citizenship, which is also on the Card,” he noted. “That is also a way to reduce drastically the registration of minors and foreigners.”

A move by the EC to lay a constitutional instrument (CI) in Parliament to have the Ghana Card as the sole document for registration for the 2024 elections was in September last year opposed unanimously by the House.

The Minority led the opposition as members of the caucus believed the use of the Ghana Card as a sole document will disenfranchise many voters.

The Commission was, therefore, asked to amend the CI, which is expected to be laid before the House soon.