Editorial: Charlotte, validate and be free

As our lead story warns, the Electoral Commission risks having a very big mess on its hands, whether the elections are on November 7 or December 7, with potentially one million individual cases of objections for magistrates to adjudicate before a full and complete register can be compiled before the 2016 general elections. This would all be as a result of one thing: a stubborn EC that knows what it has to do, yet determined not to do it.

The Supreme Court has ordered the EC to delete the names of the millions of people who registered using NHIS cards and offer them the opportunity to re-register if indeed they are Ghanaians and of age. This is because several foreigners managed to get on Ghana's electoral roll illegally using a card that could be possessed by even tourists visiting Ghana.

Instead of going ahead with impartial zeal and professionalism to give effect to the court order, the EC has rather been looking at all disingenuous ways to wriggle out of it. The EC knows very well that it would not be able to delete the names of those who registered with NHIS cards. And, the reason is simple. There is no way the EC can identify them because at the point of registration no document can specifically show which document the registrant presented as proof of citizenship.
The EC told the Supreme Court that it could identify NHIS card registrants by going back to all the 14 million Voter Registration Form 1As to look through every single one of them. This, unfortunately, is most insincere and frankly shameful. Even if the EC can be credited with proper record-keeping, the Form 1A has no place where registrants were asked to indicate the kind of ID used. In fact, the only space indicated on Form 1A is specifically for a holder of National ID card to indicate its serial number. The National ID card, which the EC in 2012 anticipated would be available to all citizens, did not materialize.
This means that the EC knows it cannot honestly go through the literal process of identifying all the affected names, delete them and give those eligible the opportunity to re-register, as ordered by the court.
But, that is not to say the EC cannot effect the order. The EC knows it can do so and the only way it can do so is by allowing every registered voter to go through the process of biometric verification/authentication/validation.
The court order was also for dead people to be deleted. A validation process would automatically eliminate all dead people since the dead cannot walk out from their coffins to the exhibition centres to be validated.
By demanding of every voter, whether they used NHIS cards or not, to come out to their polling stations with an acceptable ID to be validated during the exhibition exercise, the EC knows it would effectively kill four notorious birds with one stone: (1) foreigners (2) dead people (3) minors and (4) emigrants, since in order to register to vote you must "ordinarily reside" in the electoral area you are registering.
But, the EC apparently has no intention to do what is right but to stick doggedly to using the discredited challenge procedure available at the exhibition stage of the provisional register of voters.
Yet, it was this same EC that admitted in its response to the NPP on December 30, 2015, that, as compared to other African countries, Ghana has a far larger percentage of its population on the register because, "Processes for challenging registration of prospective voters in other jurisdictions are more effective?" Why does the EC insist on using a process itself considers to be ineffective to effect the provision of a clean register? Amazing!
Indeed, the VCRAC Crabbe Panel Report does not see the challenge procedure presented by the exhibition of the voters' register as a good enough measure for removing invalid names from the list.

The report argued, "judging by the sheer numbers, the Electoral Commission's proposition to display the register, with political party representatives, the Electoral Commission and citizenry to identify and point out invalid names, is not a viable approach. Particularly when the persons who identify these records are expected to expend their time, energy and resources not only to provide the evidence but also to testify before a court of competent jurisdiction."

The stubborn posture of the EC only gives the unfortunate impression that the EC has signed a pact with the devil to give Ghana a bloated register for 2016. The 7 Commissioners still have time to kill this sad and potentially dangerous impression. It is their call.