Question:
Is the call for a total replacement of the Biometric Voters Register backed by any solid reasons?
Answer:
No. All the reasons so far given are very weak and designed to feed into NPP propaganda that they did not lose the 2012 elections but were cheated.
Let us examine the reasons one by one.
a. Statements made by Dr. Afari Gyan and H. E. President Mahama have been quoted to support the case that the 2012 Biometric Register is bloated hence the call for its replacement.
b. Because of the Supreme Court ruling in 2004 that the NHIA card in its current form could not be used as evidence of citizenship for the purpose of registration, all the names of persons who registered with the NHIA card must be deleted from the Voters Register.
c. According to the 2010 Census, the total population of Ghana is 25 million. The 2013 Voters Register puts the total number of registered Voters at over 14 million constituting over 56% of the total population. These figures are out of tune with those of any African country they have compared with.
Answer:
A closer examination of these statements reveals that they were made in reference to the 2008 manual Voters Register.
Indeed, the Biometric Voters Register was adopted to solve the problem described in the statement
(I) Retroactive legislation is not allowed by the 1992 Constitution.
(II) The fact that an individual decides to present the NHIA Card out of about 4 options available to him is not a conclusive evidence that he/she lacks any of the other three.
(III) Even if a new register is to be compiled based on the ruling, those affected will already be in possession of an old Voters I.D” which qualifies them for re-registration.
When a fraction (percentage) is wrong the problem could be with either the NUMERATOR ( in this case the Voters Register) or the DENOMERATOR (in this case the population census).
By what logic is NPP holding the population census figures to be accurate and judging the Biometric Voters Register to be bloated?
Infact, the evidence points to the opposite direction because.
(I) The Biometric technology employment by the EC to compile the Voters Register and the presence of witnesses (party agents) makes the output more accurate and reliable than the manual and rudimentary method employed by the statistical service in the population census.
Indeed Dr. Bawumia the author of the NPP Electoral Reforms Proposal has himself been at the forefront of questioning the accuracy of data generated by the Satistical Service in Ghana.
Question:
Is the Biometric Voters Register a perfect document?
Answer:
No. But it is the most accurate register so far ever compiled for any elections in Ghana.
The following are some of the defects:
(a) The technology cannot detect and remove names of minors already registered or prevent the them from registering.However, once registered they can’t register again when they become of age.
(b) The Biometric technology cannot on its own identify and remove names of dead persons from the register.
However, nobody can be verified to vote with such redundant names.
(c) Conclusion: In spite of these shortcomings, so far, it has not been proven that anybody has succeeded in voting more than once or voted with the name and particulars of another person. The possibility of rigging elections with the Biometric Register as it is now is very minimal.
