Biometric Registration Commences

The Electoral Commission (EC) has announced that the compilation of a new voter register, using biometric technology, will commence on Saturday 24th March and end on Saturday 5th April, 2012. The Chairman of the EC, Dr Kwadwo Afari Djan, estimates that about 12 million eligible voters may be registered during this 40-day period.

However, the Danquah Institute is worried about the fact that the results of the 2010 Population and Housing Census, conducted by the Ghana Statistical Service, have still not been published, 18 months after it was conducted.

The delay is unusual and unprecedented. Moreover, no credible explanation has so far been offered by government for this undue delay. In 2000, the final census results of that year were declared in that same year. How much more today, with all the advances in ICT over the last decade?

We are, with this press statement, calling on the government to allow the results of the 2010 national census to be released and in time for the 2012 new voter registration exercise.

Tensions are, no doubt, high in this election period. The most effective antidote to this is transparency. The census would serve as a useful weapon in blunting, particularly, two major instruments of voter registration fraud, which biometric technology would not be able to deal with: registration of minors and foreigners.

While we commend government for committing funds to the biometric registration and verification process, we, nevertheless, find it strange that in spite of all his verbal assurances on ensuring free and fair elections, the President of the Republic does not appear to appreciate the usefulness in making the census results public and available to all in order to help in the national efforts towards a credible 2012 general elections.

With barely two weeks for the biometric registration exercise to commence, we at the Danquah Institute find it unacceptable that Ghanaians have no detailed idea what the final total population was (per the 2010 census) and how that is shared among the sexes, ages, regions, districts and constituencies, for instance.

We are deeply concerned that there is no means of verifying the demographic data of a district/constituency before registration commences. Our concerns have been deepened by the possibility that this delay could be deliberate.

This development paints a disturbing picture for the impending biometric registration. However, information available to us from our credible sources within the GSS suggests that the 2010 census results have been tallied, verified and approved. And, that, if government so wished it could definitely have the complete data released to the public before the registration began.

The EC has also stated that it is awaiting final data from the 2010 census to enable it create additional constituencies ahead of the 2012 general elections. An earlier release of the census would have allowed the EC to undertake the upcoming voter registration with the new electoral boundaries.

The purpose of the 2010 census, indeed like all other censuses, was to enumerate Ghana’s household, institutional and floating population so as to show regional, district and community population figures and determine the characteristics of the population in Ghana, including age.

Therefore, publishing the census figures before the impending biometric registration will help political parties, civil society organisations, the EC, among others to better track voter registration trends in line with figures from the 2010 census.

For instance, if the census showed that 55% of residents of a particular constituency were over 18 years old and the registered numbers on the new voter list showed a lot more people, representing some 100% of the constituency’s total population captured in the census, such a large discrepancy would certainly call for greater scrutiny and explanations.

While we at the Danquah institute continue to commend the EC for the progressive efforts it has continued to make to enhance the credibility of our electoral processes over the years, we still think the publication of the 2010 census figures will further enhance that credibility and reinforce public confidence in the system if used to track this electoral cycle’s voter registration trends.

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EDITORS’ NOTES Ghana’s 2004 general elections presents us with a test case scenario, similar to what we are going to experience in this year’s registration exercise. Figures from the 2000 census, released on the 28th of December 2001, informed the decision by the Electoral Commission on Wednesday December 24 2003 to create 30 new constituencies bringing the total to 230 throughout the country for the 2004 General Election.

After the creation of new constituencies, based on the figures from the 2000 census, the compilation of a new voter register commenced. The compilation of the register, to replace the one used in 2000, began on the 16th of March 2004.

Thus, before the registration exercise commenced, the Electoral Commission had a fairly good idea as to what the geographic boundaries of each district, together with the total number of inhabitants were.

Another scenario is what ensued in Nigeria before the 2007 elections. Nigeria’s 2006 census figures, released on the 30th of December 2006, put Nigeria’s total population at 140 million. Soon after the announcement of the figures, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of Nigeria commenced the registration of new voters for the April 2007 polls. The 2011 Nigeria biometric registration exercise, which used 23 days to register 73.5 million voters, were largely based on the findings of the 2006 census figures.

Indeed, in an answer to a question raised by our Executive Director, Asare Otchere-Darko, this week at the IDEG event on biometric registration, Prof Jega, chairmen of INEC, justified Nigeria’s final voters’ list being about six million more than the provisional figures because the final list corresponded with the census figures.

The United States, also in January 2010, conducted a national Census, the figures of which were released on the 21st December 2010. The United States Census Bureau published a popular "dot" or "nighttime" map showing population distribution as well as complete listings of population density by place name. According to the census figures, 230,118,000 Americans are eligible to vote in the November 2012 polls.