The Chairperson of Ghana’s Electoral Commission (EC), Jean Mensa, has emphasized that the proposed constitutional instrument, aimed at designating the Ghana Card as the exclusive document for voter registration, is not intended to disenfranchise Ghanaians.
Speaking to the media at the Electoral Commission’s headquarters on Friday, Jean Mensa clarified that the Commission is looking to move away from the guarantor system, which she believes has become obsolete.
This is the reason behind the decision to adopt the Ghana Card as the sole identification document for voting purposes.
Jean Mensa went on to elaborate that employing the Ghana Card as the primary means of identification is the most reliable method to safeguard the credibility of Ghana’s electoral roll.
“The current proposal in Parliament, the Constitutional Instrument, does not intend to reintroduce the guarantor system. We have observed that the guarantor system has not been effective. Thirty years ago, when we embarked on this journey without the Ghana Card, it was necessary to implement a system that would enable individuals without documentation to register. Today, with the presence of the Ghana Card, we must depend on it as the most reliable means to maintain the accuracy of our electoral register.”
She contended that the draft Constitutional Instrument, currently under parliamentary consideration, was motivated by the Commission’s commitment to conducting elections that are credible, transparent, fair, and peaceful. This decision arose from the challenges faced by the Commission during the registration process in 2020.
“As a Commission dedicated to organizing elections that are credible, transparent, fair, and peaceful, we sought to establish and uphold the credibility of the foundational document, which is the voters’ register. This is why we proposed the use of the Ghana Card as the sole means of identifying an individual’s citizenship or age.”
“Our experience from the 2020 Registration Exercise highlighted that a number of minors and non-citizens managed to enter the electoral roll through the guarantor system. To eliminate underage individuals and non-citizens from the 2020 register, the Electoral Commission set up District Registration Review Committees, which worked for several weeks to remove such names. It required significant time and effort to rectify the presence of ineligible individuals in our electoral roll. We contested around 40,000 cases involving minors and non-citizens and ultimately removed around 15,000 individuals from the register.”