There is always the need to minimise the risk of foreigners being on the voter register
The issue of foreign nationals scheming to get their names onto Ghana's Voter Register illegally is a troubling one. This unholy act must be discouraged by all well-meaning Ghanaians, not encouraged. In the developed world, this treacherous act is not merely unlawful but in fact, it is a criminal act the consequences of which can be mercilessly severe.
Indeed, it is impossible for any country (developed or developing) to completely rid its voter register of illegal foreign registrants. Ask the mighty US of A, and you will find that, from time to time the US authorities do bust one foreign national or another who has managed to vote in the country illegally either through false representation or identity theft or impersonation. As for the punishment for those culprits who are eventually caught, well, your guess is as good as mine.
But I digress. The point here is that yes, no country can completely rid its voter register of illegal foreign registrants; but that does not mean that no country should try to fight the canker. To suggest that it is not worth compiling a new voter register in an effort to purge the register of foreign nationals because you can't achieve 100 percent desired results is akin to saying that it is worthless to fight crime because you cannot eliminate crime in society. But that's not reasonable, is it?
By the way, the essence of risk management is not to eliminate risk completely, but rather to mitigate risk. That is, to reduce risk to the barest minimum possible. Isn't that why there is the notion of margin of error in estimations of such nature?
While it is true that you can't possibly flush out all illegal foreign nationals from your voter register because, by all means, some determined ones may still find their way into the register (loopholes in the system), the need to minimize this risk cannot be gainsaid.
When foreigners find their way into your national voter register in significant numbers, the risk is that they can potentially influence election results in your country. And that is not good for any country. Therefore, it behooves every electoral body, such as Ghana's Electoral Commission (EC), to strive hard to reduce this risk to the barest minimum possible. That is why it is important that the EC does all in its power to prevent/reduce the chance that foreign nationals can get their names onto Ghana's new voter register.
Now, the argument whether or not Ghana's old voter register was actually bloated is neither here nor there in view of the need to ensure that our voter register does not contain a significant number of foreigners. Given the strong suspicion by some section of Ghanaians and, especially given the EC's own suspicion that the register was bloated, it stands to reason that the EC would move to assure Ghanaians of its best efforts to make sure that the country has a new register that is as clean as possible.
Consider a situation where 600,000 foreigners are suspected to be illegally contained in the voter register. [Note: The figures I am using here are only assumptions for the sake of argument.] If, after compiling the new register -- with all the systems in place to prevent foreigners from illegally registering -- the suspected number of foreign registrants is reduced to 6000, that's a significant achievement. The new voter register has reduced the suspected number of foreign registrants to 1/100th the quantum suspected to be contained in the old register.
On the face value, at least, the potential risk that foreigners on the register can influence the outcome of elections is reduced by the same magnitude: 100 times less. Even if the suspected number of foreigners is only reduced from 600 thousand to 60 thousand (1/10th), it is still a significant achievement. The potential risk is reduced to 10 times less. It's worth the investment.
In accounting terms that is called Materiality. If a piece of information has the potential to influence a decision, one way or another, you must report it. You don't ignore it. It's that simple; address the problem if the potential risk is significant (material).
Of course, in the case of a country's voter register, materiality is not the only consideration, albeit a key consideration. But it is also about the sanctity of the voter register and the electoral system. It is about the Sovereignty of the nation. And it is about respecting the laws of the land. Take the USA for instance. One could possibly argue that the likelihood of foreign nationals who can illegally vote in the country may not be material in the grand scheme of things. Yet the US authorities spare no effort in fishing out such illegal voters or potential illegal voters. Why is that? Food for thought!
Now, let me get to the substantive object of my article.
The EC should conduct a Post-Registration Verification
To further reduce the risk that certain determined foreign nationals managed to scheme their way into the newly compiled voter register, I highly recommend that the Electoral Commission (EC) conduct what may be termed, Post-Registration Verification.
I am aware of the EC's de-duplication and adjudication process. I think that's great. It's commendable that the EC is determined to compile a clean voters register and to take steps to purge the register of foreigners and other ineligible voters.
Since I am not well informed of the steps involved in the de-duplication and adjudication process, I recognize that I risk making recommendations that are already considered by the EC. Nevertheless, here are my recommendations:
Run system checks to verify if any of the Ghana cards used for voter registration was the "Non-Citizen" type. I once listened to a news item where one of EC's deputy commissioners, Dr. Bossman Asare, explained that there are two types of the Ghana card: One for citizens and one for non-citizens. Explaining further that only the "Citizen" card was valid for voter registration. The question then is, were any determined foreigners able to outsmart the system by illegally registering as voters with the "non-citizen" Ghana card? If we think the answer is no. How do we know for certain? Could not an unscrupulous EC registration agent turn a blind eye to allow such illegal registration to happen? Or was the system programmed to catch such violations and reject same? If not, is there not a way to program EC's central system to run checks to verify if any such ineligible registration exists in the new register? Today's technology should be able to help do that easily. If any persons are found to have illegally registered using the "non-citizen" Ghana card, such illegal registrants should be deleted from the register.
Run system checks on those registrants who used guarantors to verify the legibility of the guarantors. Here, the idea is to make sure that nobody who acted as guarantor is among those persons (if any) who have been caught to have illegally registered with the "non--citizen" Ghana card. Again, technology should help EC's central system to run such verification with ease. Since anyone who registers with a non-citizen card is ineligible and automatically disqualified, the guarantee provided by such a person for anyone should be rendered null and void at once. Hence, the person who benefitted from such a guarantor should be deleted from the register. On this score, I submit that the EC should grant the registrants who are so affected the opportunity to prove their Ghanaian citizenship in court for possible remedy.
Run system checks to verify if any persons registered using registration forms printed from the EC website or fax copies of same or other document. This verification recommendation is necessitated by news reports that some unscrupulous persons were filling registration forms printed from the EC website and giving same to other persons to go and register. I would imagine that such approach is a violation of the process. I assume that the official registration forms would follow a particular sequence (serial number system of some sort). If so, it should be easy to program EC's central system to run such verification checks on all registration forms captured into the system. If any forms used for registration are found to not follow the sequence or be out of order, such forms should be rejected. Consequently, the registrants who used such forms should be deleted from the register. On this score also, I would submit that the EC grants the registrants who are so affected the opportunity to prove their Ghanaian citizenship in court for possible remedy.
Cause the arrest and prosecution of all offenders. Regardless of my submission above that the EC should afford certain offenders the opportunity for possible remedy, the EC must take steps to ensure that all offenders are arrested and duly prosecuted. The EC should not simply delete offenders identified through the above three verification processes (or other verification processes) from the register and leave it there, no. It is important that offenders are punished, at least, to serve as deterrent to future offenders. But more than that, the laws must be enforced and justice must be applied. Culprits should not be only the persons who illegally registered and/or illegally guaranteed for other persons to register. But culprits should also include any EC registration officer who allowed such violations to happen; in other words, any EC registration officer under whose watch such blatant violations occurred.
The post-registration verification process must be transparent. Transparency is everything. Especially in electoral matters such as this. The EC would do itself and the country a great service by making sure that the above recommendations and/or any other similar processes are done in an open and transparent manner. Perhaps involving the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) would be a good thing.
I have just read a Ghanaweb article that suggests that the EC chairperson, Mrs. Jean Mensa, has given a strong indication of the commissions determination to make sure that the new voter register is truly a Ghanaian undertaking (See "We will make the register a wholly Ghanaian-owned enterprise -- EC": https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/We-will-make-the-register-a-wholly-Ghanaian-owned-enterprise-EC-1032688). I am all for it and I admire Mrs. Jean Mensa and her commission's resolve. Kudos to them. They deserve our gratitude.
