According to Haruna Iddrisu, the former Minority Leader, the Electoral Commission has violated the Constitution by not holding limited registration exercises since 2021.
He claims that as a result, some mature citizens have been denied the opportunity to register as voters.
He requested that his claim be supported by evidence such as figures and facts.
“Mr. Speaker, for the record, Ghanaians over the age of 18 have been denied the opportunity to be registered voters in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. He stated, “This is a constitutional violation.”
He noted that a nation committed to multiparty constitutional democracy cannot tolerate this situation.
“Mr. Speaker, the right to vote and to have one’s name cast in a ballot is so sacred.” According to Article 94 of the Constitution, one of the minimum requirements for being elected as a Member of Parliament is to demonstrate that you are a registered voter.
According to him, the “Electoral Commission by virtue of their existing CI have no reason to tell anyone and this August House why they have still failed to capture Ghanaians who have attained 18 years,” which is why he stated that
The Tamale South MP stated that the EC should not be permitted to present its new Constitutional Instrument (CI) to Parliament.
The Ghana Card is the only form of identification that can be used to guarantee citizenship under the EC’s new CI.
A regulation in the CI that mandates registration at an EC district office is also opposed by the Minority.
Haruna Iddrisu claims that these regulations must not be implemented because they will deprive Ghanaians of their right to vote.
through.
“The Electoral Commission was now informing the Ghanaian public via Parliament that the National Identification Authority (NIA) national ID card will be the sole reference document for registration purposes. That is the intention of what is referred to as a draft CI, Mr. Speaker,” he stated.
“Once more, Mr. Speaker, our committee discovered issues with that designation where it refers to a district office of the EC or any other location that the Commission deems appropriate. Mr. Speaker, ever since the Electoral Commission was established in 1993, voter registration has been carried out at polling stations rather than district offices,” he added.
O.B. Amoah, an MP for Akuapem South, however, argued in favor of the EC’s proposed Constitutional Instrument that the EC is entitled to seek to use the Ghana Card as the sole identity document.
He argued that the guarantor system had been abused, “in the sense that people override, detain guarantee contractors where they join the queue, get registered, they stand by and say that they are waiting for 10 or five people,” as he put it.
The abuse of the guarantor system, according to Mr. Amoah, is cause for concern and must be taken into account.
“… He seems to acknowledge that the guarantor system has been abused, if you look at this report. Even for practitioners, the idea behind the guarantor system was to acknowledge that prospective registrants could rely on their parents, spouses, or children to guarantee and sign a form stating that “really, I know this person.”
