New voter registration will begin in April – EC

The Electoral Commission says it will begin compiling the new voters register for the December 2020 elections in April.

The commission added it hopes to end the exercise by the end of May.

This was disclosed by the Director of Electoral Services, Dr Serebour Quaicoe Tuesday

“We want to start by mid-April and by the end of May we would have finished,” he told Morning Starr Tuesday.

On the claim by the National Identification Authority that it is willing to hand over its data to the EC, he reacted: “We have a challenge with their data, we are targeting over 10million people but they have about 7 million so we don’t know when the will be ready. And besides we have to attach a polling station to all those numbers”.

Meanwhile, the main opposition NDC and other parties against the compilation of new voters register by the Electoral Commission ahead of the December Presidential and parliamentary elections are demonstrating in Kumasi in the Ashanti region today.

The first protest to challenge plans of the new register was held at Tamale in the Northern region.

The group insist a new register is a waste of taxpayers money and could also create tension since the election is close.

The electoral commission, however, insists they will go ahead and create the register despite the disagreement by the parties and civil society organisations.

Last week, a coalition of major Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and key individuals under the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC) in a statement collectively rejected the decision of the Electoral Commission (EC) to compile a new voters’ register ahead of this year’s general elections.

The coalition, numbering about eighteen (18) CSOs are the latest to join several groups to criticize the EC’s plan to introduce a new voter management system for the upcoming elections.

The members of the coalition include the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC), IMANI Africa, SEND Ghana, Africa Centre for International Law and Accountability (ACILA), Financial Accountability and Transparency, Africa (FAT-Africa), Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) and Youth Bridge Foundation.

The others are the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI), Citizens Movement against Corruption (CMaC), Human Rights Advocacy Centre (HRAC), Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF), Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), Parliamentary Network Africa (PNA), Community Focus Foundation Ghana (CFF-Ghana), PACKS-Africa and the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC).