EC uncertain about proxy and transfer voting

Alhaji Amadu Sule, Director of Research, Monitoring and Evaluation at the Electoral Commission (EC), has said the EC had not yet taken a decision on voting by proxy or transfer of voting.

He said the new voters’ registration system had not made any provision for such voting systems.

Alhaji Sule explained that both the proxy and transfer voting requires another voter to vote on behalf of the individual and that “with the biometric system, the person who had registered must be present and vote by person, a situation which makes it quite difficult for proxy and transfer voting.”

Alhaji Sule was addressing a day’s workshop on the biometric voters’ registration exercise in Tamale on Monday.

He said the Statistical Service had already released the provisional population figures and the EC could work with those figures.

Alhaji Sule said the EC could have still gone ahead to register Ghanaians using projections from the previous census records about the country’s population.

Using the provisional figure of 24 million as announced by the Statistical Service, Alhaji Sule said the voting population was about 12.5 million and that 48 percent of every nation’s population is universally accepted to be the voting population.

Mr. Sylvester Kanyi, the Northern Regional Director of the EC, said those who would want to register are expected to bring along a passport, national identification card, driving license and the national health insurance card and that without these, a person could come with a guarantor who will prove of his/her eligibility.

Mr. Kanyi said persons without the above mentioned documents will not be allowed to register stressing that non-Ghanaians must not also be allowed to register.**