PRESS RELEASE
TO: ALL MEDIA HOUSES
DATE: 7TH SEPTEMBER, 2024
AFRICAN ELECTORAL INSTITUTE (AEI) AGREES WITH CALLS FOR THE 2024 VOTERS REGISTER TO BE SUBJECTED TO A FORENSIC AUDIT.
The African Electoral Institute (AEI) wish to add its voice to calls for the 2024 voters register to be audited forensically since it is a secure means of guaranteeing a credible, transparent and robust register going into elections 2024.
The AEI believes that a forensic audit into the voters register is crucial at this material time due to the enormous errors or anomalies detected during the just ended Provisional Voter Register Exhibition exercise undertaken by the Electoral Commission.
The Institute ( AEI) is equally of the view that, a forensic audit of the voters register will ensure accuracy and the verification of the authenticity of voter data , thereby removing all errors such as double entries, illegal voter transfers, change in polling stations without the knowledge of affected persons and many others , to sanitize the register and make it fit for purpose.
The Electoral Commission itself has come out to accept that there are some errors in the register that needs to be rectified. According to the EC, they have already initiated some actions, including the suspension of the electoral officer of Pusiga in the Upper East Region, for his alleged involvement in fraudulent voter transfer as part of the measures taken.
The admission by the Electoral Commission (above) is the more reason why a forensic audit by an independent third Party in collaboration with the Inter Party’s Advisory Committee (IPAC) is necessary to cure and correct the errors in the register to the satisfaction of all and to bring closure to this nagging issue.
The AEI holds the view that a forensic audit of the voters register will in the long round, demonstrate the EC’s commitment to openness and accountability because upholding Ghana’s democracy is underscored by the integrity of the electoral process and an acceptable voters register since the inception of the 4th Republic.
To conclude, the African Electoral Institute reiterates its position that a forensic audit by a third party in collaboration with IPAC will cause all stakeholders to accept the final register as clean and worthy to be used to conduct elections which outcome will be acceptable to all devoid of rancor and suspicion by anyone. A credible election must seem to be free, fair, transparent, and accountable .This can not be achieved if the Voter Register, being the prime document for the process is unhealthy.
SIGNED:
Ex: WO1 Alhaji Yussif Mahamah.
Electoral Security Department.
About Us:
African Electoral Institute ( AEI) is a Civil Society Organisation (CSO) founded to deliver sustainable electoral solutions to Emerging and Developed Democracies to strengthen, augment, and build electoral stakeholders capacity and participation on electoral issues through electoral education on voter’s rights and freedom, electoral research, election monitoring, election observation, election results collation, election security awareness and training of polling agents and elections directors underscoring the fact that “elections are won at the polling stations’’ and the participation of all identifiable electoral stakeholders in an electoral process such as Political Parties, Governmental Institutions, underpinning transparency and accountability for a free, fair, and credible elections in Africa and the wider world.
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