Why there are ‘thousands of duplicate entries, multiple registrations’ in voters register - IMANI Africa

Education and policy think tank, IMANI Africa, has given some reasons for the challenges the Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC) is having with the voters register ahead of the December 7, 2024, election.

According to the think tank, the challenges with the voters register all have to do with procurement issues within the commission, as it pointed out in 2020.

In a lengthy post shared on Facebook by the Founder and President of IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe, he indicated that technology acquired by the EC to clean up the voters register is failing badly, which is why there are so many issues with the register.

“The EC has had many months to use the MegaMatcher software to remove duplicate registrations (a different problem from 'duplicate IDs', which are an administrative issue). It was therefore shocking that the EC could only supply the parties with a provisional voters register on August 19th. It is true that the EC conducted some mop-up activities in August, but the main register should have been completed weeks prior.

“Even more shocking is that after the exhibition of the register from August 20th to 27th, many thousands of duplicate entries and multiple registrations NOT ALREADY on the 'multiple registrations list' are still being found. Remember that the point of the exhibition is not to catch new multiple registrations. Between the end of the registration exercise and the start of the exhibition (i.e. from May 27th to August 20th, almost 3 months), the EC is expected to use the MegaMatcher software to eliminate duplicates and place them on the Multiple Registration list for affected individuals to show cause why their details should not be removed from the register,” part of the post reads.

It added, “Note that MegaMatcher shouldn’t take even a few hours to remove duplicate names from a register with as many as a BILLION names/entries IF IT IS BEING OPERATED PROPERLY. Ghana’s register has fewer than 20 million names. The question is why is a system being used effectively around the world failing so badly in this case? We believe that the EC’s opaquely procured consulting and support services are failing badly due to the initial procurement abuses that failed to set the whole project up properly. Once again, we demand a very thorough examination of the full cycle of technology procurement impacting the upcoming elections.”

The IMANI boss went ahead to share some of the multiple registrations which were found in the voters register.

The voters register they shared had the title ‘The Electoral Commission of Ghana – Voters Register – 2023’.

The register showed several repetitions of the biography of persons with different voter identification numbers.

View IMANI's post plus the register below:

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