No perfect voters’ register exists in the world - Mahama

Ahead of this year’s presidential and parliamentary elections, President John Dramani Mahama has observed that there is no perfect electoral register in the entire world, however, nobody can use Ghana’s register in its current state to his or her advantage.

There have been controversies over the credibility of the register of voters ahead of this year’s elections.

The Electoral Commission (EC) is at the moment implementing an order given to it by the Supreme Court to delete all names of persons who registered onto the roll using the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) cards as proof of citizenship.

The EC has so far deleted names of some 56,000 voters who registered using NHIS documents and has announced that it will reregister these persons.

President Mahama, answering questions on the issues surrounding the register on Radio Savannah in Tamale Thursday July 14 said: “I believe with the advantage we have in terms of biometric registration and verification, even if you didn’t have a register that was perfect…I believe that even if their names are on that register and we are vigilant at the polls nobody can use them to his advantage because we will all vote with our fingerprints registered, so I believe these institutions know how to work these things out.”

He added: “I have enough issues to deal with without taking other people’s issues on my head. And so you have not heard me comment about the voters’ register or the Supreme Court ruling or anything.

“I think the two institutions are good enough to be able to handle the issues that confront them. We have an EC that is well respected and I believe that they will do the right thing.”