Ghana’s EC outlines, explains biometric registration process

The Electoral Commission of Ghana has disclosed that the biometric registration of all eligible Ghanaian voters will be conducted in four phases in all regions of the country, using 7,000 kits.

It says each phase will take 10 days including Saturdays and Sundays, thus bringing the period for the entire exercise to 40 days, with the first phase starting on March 24 and ending April 2, 2012.

The second phase will begin April 4 and end April 13, third phase scheduled for April 15 with completion on April 24 and the fourth and last from April 26 to May 5, 2012.

Revealing this at a dialogue arranged by the Editors Forum, Ghana in Accra Wednesday, February 15 with the theme: “Election 2012: The EC’s preparations so far”, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, Chairman of Ghana’s Electoral Commission (EC), said  the one day break at the end of each phase is to allow the registration team go through  the ‘end of registration’ procedures for a completed phase and also restock materials for the next phase.

According to the EC, for the purpose of the phased registration exercise, polling stations, which will be used as registration centres, have been grouped into clusters comprising four stations, with a registration team of six (6) being responsible for the registration of voters in each cluster.

There will also be three registration supervisors and two technicians for each district to handle technical issues with the kits.

In view of this, applicants or eligible voters are required to go to the polling stations where they usually vote or where they live, to be registered as voters.

This, according to Dr. Afari-Gyan, is in line with the basic principle of where you register is where you vote, while the four-phase system has been adopted because the 7,000 registration kits cannot serve all the over 23,000 polling or registration centres across the country simultaneously.

To further enhance the process, the EC says it will publicise the movement plan of the respective registration teams by local announcements, indicating the dates on which the registration teams will be at each of the polling stations they are required to serve, adding that prospective voters can also ask registration officers about the scheduled dates.

Further, the EC said before an eligible voter is issued with an instant ID card embossed with his or her picture and a barcode containing the ID number after successful registration, the correct date of birth, evidence of eligibility such as a birth certificate, passport, baptismal card, driver’s licence, National ID card, an existing voter card, National Health Insurance card or other, will have to be provided.

Also required will be the applicant’s residential address including house number of present abode, hometown and residential address in that hometown.

The three-stage registration process will involve eligible voters having all their 10 fingers captured digitally on a tab (four fingers on each hand first and two thumbs last), photographs taken without obstructions such as caps, spectacles or other covering, personal details filled in and being issued with a laminated photo ID with barcode.

“Where an applicant has lost some fingers, the fingerprints of the available fingers will be captured”, while “Special arrangements will be made for the registration of people who do not have any fingers at all”, says the EC.

It adds that in the event an applicant has his or her registration challenged, he or she will not be issued with a voter ID card and will be issued only if they are cleared by a District Registration Review Committee set up for that purpose.

By Edmund Smith-Asante