The Electoral Commission (EC) has clarified that the initial discrepancies found in the provisional voters' register across all regions were not intended to disenfranchise voters.
According to the Commission, it has been working diligently to correct these discrepancies over the past few weeks, and the register is now more accurate than what was originally exhibited to the public and political parties.
During an Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting on Tuesday, October 1, EC Chairperson Jean Mensa explained that the Commission employed a thorough approach to clean the voters' register.
She said voters who identified errors in their details, whether through visits to exhibition centers or electronic checks, were able to visit district offices to have their issues resolved.
“Our exhibition of officers in all of our 40,000-plus exhibition centers scrutinised the register and reported discrepancies for corrections by our IT team.
“Our field staff made up of district officers and regional officers relied also on the soft copy of the register on their machine to scrutinise the register and correct discrepancies,” she said.
Madam Mensa further noted that this method has proven effective in resolving most of the discrepancies detected in the register.
“For the records, this same approach was adopted by the commission prior to the production of the final voters’ register in 2020 and it worked effectively.
“Evidence shows that despite concerns raised about the effectiveness of that 2020 register to deliver a credible election, there were no voters who were denied the opportunity to vote during the 2020 elections,” she said.
She expressed confidence that the same approach will be successful in ensuring a credible and accurate final voters' register for the 2024 general elections.
Credit: Prince Adu-Owusu