FLASHBACK: EC sued over 'bloated' poll roll

In the build-up to the 2016 general elections, the current Bono Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), acting in the capacity of a private citizen filed a legal suit against the EC.

Kwame Baffoe, affectionately called Abronye DC, was then the Brong Ahafo regional youth organiser of the party. His reason for filing the suit against the EC was simple.

He was dissatisfied with the EC’s decision to use the 2012 voters’ register to conduct the 2016 polls.

Abronye DC petitioned the court to declare the 2012 register unfit for the conduct of the polls and order the EC to compile a fresh register.

Read the full story originally published on February 22, 2016, on Ghanaweb

A suit has been filed at the Supreme Court against the Electoral Commission seeking to stop the election management body from using the "bloated" and "unfit-for-use" 2012 register of voters for the November 2016 polls.

The plaintiff, Kwame Baffoe, is the Brong Ahafo Regional Youth Organiser of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), but said he filed the suit in his capacity as a private citizen of Ghana who is dissatisfied with the decision by the EC to conduct their November polls with the controversial register.

Mr Baffoe, also known as 'Abronye D.C.' filed the case with suit number J1/13/2016 on Friday February 19 and cited the EC and Attorney General as defendants.

The plaintiff is praying the highest court of the land to, per Articles 21 (b) and 130 (1) of the 1992 Constitution, to declare the 2012 register as unfit for the conduct of the November polls and an order for the EC to compile a fresh register.

The EC and AG have 14 days to respond to the suit after they have been served.

According to Mr Baffoe, the register is bloated and fraught with names of ineligible voters such as foreigners and minors, thus, his action to have a new register compiled.

The NPP and pressure group Let My Vote Count Alliance (LMVCA) have insisted the register contains about 76,000 names of Togolese as well as several minors on it. Flagbearer of the NPP Nana Akufo-Addo is on record to have said the register is bloated by about two million ineligible voters.

A five-member panel of eminent persons which collated views concerning the sanctity of the register recommended that it be cleaned and used for the elections rather than completely discarded for a new one.