Electoral Commission’s Adjudication Review Committee approves de-duplication
The Electoral Commission (EC) has explained that the de-duplication of 69,236 from the Voters Register was based on reports of the legally mandated Adjudication Review Committee (ARC).
The ARC is reviewing cases of multiple registration after the 2014 limited registration exercise.
The EC noted that ARC which followed due process for adjudication recommended that either multiple names are moved from the Exceptions List and added to the register, or deleted entirely.
“The EC wishes to state that it has no plan to remove names of suspected cases of multiple entries from only one region,” Mr Christian Owusu-Parry, Acting Public Affairs Director of the Commission said in a statement.
The ARC is made up of political party representatives, representatives of civil society organisations, directors of the EC, and selected senior staff of the head office, who have the legal mandate to determine all cases of suspected multiple entries.
The EC noted that the process of removing multiple names from the register after the 2014 limited registration involves political parties.
It said it would continue to use the established process of de-duplication to remove multiple names towards ensuring a cleaner register ahead of elections 2016.
The statement explained that the adjudication process involves; matching of finger prints by Automatic Fingerprint Identification System, a software which detects and brings out multiple registrations.
Other process includes examination of facial and personal data of all applicants with multiple registrations by officers of the Commission, confirmation or rejection of each case and the decision thereon by adjudication supervisors of the Commission, and printing out of adjudication reports.
“We wish to assure the nation that wherever multiple registrations are detected, due process as outlined and agreed with stakeholders will be applied,” the statement said.
Statistics indicate that after the 2014 limited registration; Western registered 91,869 whilst 7,084 were suspected to have engaged in multiple registration; Central Region registered 92,647 with 5,968 suspected to have engaged in multiple registration and Greater Accra registered 162,809 with 11,555 suspected to have engaged in multiple registration.
The Volta Region registered 52,783 with 4,099 suspected to have engaged in multiple registration; Eastern registered 93,149 with 5,490 suspected to have engaged in multiple registration; and Ashanti registered 200,559 with 14,651 suspected to have engaged in multiple registration.
The rest are Brong Ahafo registered 89,649 with 6,964 suspected to have engaged in multiple registration; Northern registered 83,732 with 8,169 suspected to have engaged in multiple registration; Upper East registered 35,849 with 2,977 suspected to have engaged in multiple registration; and Upper West registered 24,018 with 2,279 suspected to have engaged in multiple registration.
Source: GNA