Over 6,000 Ghanaians were double-registered to vote, says EC

Over 6,000 people engaged in double registration in the just-ended voter registration exercise across the country, Jean Mensa, the chair of the Electoral Commission (EC), has said.

The Commission is expected to publish particulars of the offenders on its website in the coming days to name and shame the culprits.

Mensa was speaking to journalists at the EC’s “Let the Citizen Know series” in the lead-up to the exhibition of the voters’ register.

“Going forward, these are the decisions that will be taken. Some legal action will be brought against them,” she said. “We are deciding whether or not to publish their names, but I think the Commission will publish their names on our website with their photographs and so on – and the number of times they registered.

“So be assured that we intend to call out … names of those who engage in illegalities. Once the process is completed, their images and names will be published on our website.”

Effecting corrections

Under the Electoral Commission’s laws, people who engage in double registration could be imprisoned for a maximum of two years.

Meanwhile, the Electoral Commission has urged eligible voters to participate fully in the exhibition of the voters’ register at 33,367 centres across Ghana from 18-28 September 2020.

The exercise will help the EC to clean the register of multiple voters and effect corrections before the December presidential and parliamentary elections.

The Commission will activate its short code 1422 from today, Friday 18 September, to help prospective voters who are unable to visit any of the exhibition centres to verify their details by text message.

In all 5,000 biometric verification registration (BVR) devices have been deployed for the name-checking exercise throughout the country.

Fred Dzakpata

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