The Electoral Commission (EC) on Monday met with representatives of religious leaders in Accra to educate them on the Biometric Voter Registration and Verification System in order to their congregation on the process.
The Christian and Muslim leaders were educated on the registration processes and requirements and urged to assist civil society in maintaining vigilance to help enhance the credibility of the voter’s register for Election 2012.
Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, Chairman, EC, said the Commission was very satisfied with the outcome of the just-ended pilot process of the biometric registration.
He expressed the hope that the EC would find lasting solutions to all the peculiar problems it recorded during the exercise.
The EC Chairman explained that the biometric system identifies persons by means of their unique physical features such as finger prints, face, palm or finger prints.
He said the EC had fixed March 24 to May 5 for the nationwide voter registration exercise using a biometric technology to capture data of eligible of voters.
He explained that during the process eligible voters would be required to provide personal data including evidence of their nationality, which would include a driver’s license, passport, previous voter ID card or a guarantee by a minimum of two eligible voters.
Dr Afari-Gyan said EC would spend 40 days in registering an estimated 12 million eligible voters and would deploy 7000 kits to the registration centres where the 23,000 polling stations would be grouped into a cluster of four.
“We are also requesting for about 30 million dollars for the purchase of 30,000 verification machines for use on the voting day,” explaining that although there are 23,000 polling stations nationwide they would need extra machines to cater for faulty ones on the voting day.
He explained that the entire registration process would be divided into four important phases which includes data collection, compilation of the data into a Provisional Voter's Register, an exhibition of the register during which corrections and omissions would be made, then the final printout of the official voter’s register.
He said each process would ensure quality data, which would determine the outcome of a credible voter's register.
"This means that if we don't collect good data it would affect all the other areas of the process," and called for the support of stakeholders to ensure a smooth registration process. Dr Afari-Gayan said: “If we have a credible voter’s register then it would be easy for all to accept the outcome of the election."
He appealed to all religious leaders, civil society and non-governmental organisations to help create awareness and educate the public on the biometric system so that majority of eligible voters would participate in the exercise.
He said any eligible voter who failed to participate in the exercise would not be allowed to exercise his or her franchise as the old voter’s identification card would not be valid.
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