Current register full of foreign nationals & ghosts – EC Boss Jean Mensah ‘raps’ TUC

The Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Mrs Jean Mensa has insisted that the current register is not credible because it had been bloated with the names of foreign nationals and millions of dead people, MyNewsGh.com reports.

The EC boss said this is the case because her predecessor accepted the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) cards for voter registration while people have died with their names still on the register.

According to her, the Supreme Court determined that the NHIS card was not proof of citizenship and asked the EC, in 2014, to take out the names of those who used NHIS cards for the voters registration from the register. Jean Mensah it has become challenging because determining who used the card has become almost an impossible task hence her decision to compile a new register.

She said the above when she addressed the leadership of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) before proceeding to a closed-door engagement on the compilation of the new register in Accra yesterday in Accra.

According to her, the experts had indicated that the new system would require a new operational system which would, in effect, require a migration of the old data onto it but this could lead to bigger problems with loss of data, hence the new register.

“But the experts say the migration process could cause a huge loss of data and that may result in people not finding their names in the register on the voting day, and this is what we don’t want to compromise on,” she rapped the labour leaders.

In addition, the experts also cautioned that the quality of the print could reduce to an unreadable level during the migration, she said.

“That will also cause a situation where prospective voters cannot be verified with their thumbprints, and that will force us to use manual verification to ensure that no one is disenfranchised,” Mrs Mensa said.

“However, mass manual verification will give room to manipulation because anybody can vote with any card, even if it was not his or hers, because there will be no electronic way of verifying, and we do not want to come to that,” she said.

Source: MyNewsGh.com/Stephen Zoure/2020