EC Must Audit Voters’ Register – COFFTRE

The Coalition for Free, Fair and Transparent Elections (COFFTRE) has asked the Electoral Commission (EC) to tell Ghanaians how it intends to deal with what it said were anomalies in the 2012 Voters’ Register, before registration of new voters begins on June, 20, 2014.

The coalition made this known in a statement released to the media, and signed by its National Convenor, Kenneth Agyei, and National Coordinator, Joseph Otoo.

COFFTRE cited the December 2012 Presidential Election, which it said was fraught with irregularities that compelled the NPP candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo, and two others to challenge the results in court.

District level elections are to be held before the end of this year and the EC has planned to register new voters between June 20 and June 29, 2014 under what is described as a limited registration exercise, which is normally done before any election.

According to COFFTRE, those irregularities have to be addressed before the EC carries out the District Level Assembly Elections and subsequently the 2016 elections.

It said allowing the EC to organise another election without first auditing the voters’ register, would be “inviting Ghana to a feast of war”.

“The fact that the EC is an independent body does not mean that it should conduct its operations behind a huge cloak of opacity,” COFFTRE said, stressing that the EC must be transparent in everything it does.

The Danquah Institute (DI) Thursday echoed COFFTRE’s call for the Voters’ Register to be audited.

According to the governance and policy think tank, the evidence presented in the Supreme Court during the presidential election petition in 2013 showed that the EC was not on top of issues when it came to double registration in the voters’ register.

It said the only logical step now was for a comprehensive audit to be conducted on the current register to ascertain its credibility.