Trust us for a robust register that will guarantee free, fair, transparent, and credible elections - EC

The Electoral Commission (EC) has asked political parties particularly the NDC to trust it to deliver a robust and credible register that will ensure free, fair, transparent, and credible elections.

Deputy Director in charge of Operations, Mr. Samuel Tetteh, said the exhibition exercise enables citizens to verify their details and allows for unearthing discrepancies in the register; additionally, it provides for the correction of discrepancies in the register. This is not new. This has been the practice since 1992. The process of cleaning and strengthening the voter register is well-defined by law.

He emphasised that the EC remains committed to providing the parties and the country with a credible and robust register that will guarantee free, fair, transparent, and credible elections in December 2024, and we urge the public to trust the EC to do this again and again.

He explained that the voter’s exhibition exercise in itself is an audit, stressing that the exhibition offers an avenue for the auditing of the register.

“The NDC’s detection of discrepancies with the provisional voter register is not new. As the commission has maintained, the essence of the exhibition exercise is to correct discrepancies; this is what is being done as has been the case in the past.

“The commission is of the view that the forensic audit is not what is needed at this time; it is premature,” he said.

“Perhaps this is the first time the NDC has taken interest in the register; otherwise, one would have expected them to call for such an audit of the 2016 register, which contained photos of plants and animals representing voters,” he added.

He also claimed that the call by the NDC for an audit by an independent body was needless.

“The Commission is of the view that such an audit will add no value whatsoever to the well-defined, tried and tested processes documented for the cleaning and strengthening of the provisional voter’s register. The question is, should the forensic audit be conducted, who will fix the discrepancies in the register? The answer is that it is the same commission that will fix the discrepancies, and that is what we are doing."

“It is for this reason that the EC is of the view that the call for a forensic audit is misguided. The Commission believes that, as has been the case in the past, the exhibition exercise will contribute to the strengthening of the voter’s register,” he added.