The Electoral Commission in a press statement on May 21, 2024, has dismissed claims of using missing biometric voter registration (BVR) Kits to register people secretly and urged the general public to disregard the allegations.
This comes at the back of a press conference organised by a group called Election Watch Ghana led by Mark Ewusi, which alleged that the electoral commission was using stolen BVR kits to register people secretly.
The EC clarified that they never reported stolen BVR kits but reported five missing laptops and further informed security agencies and all stakeholders. EC said describing the missing laptops as BVRs is a deliberate attempt to deceive the public.
“The Commission never reported that Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) Kits have been stolen. The Commission notified the security agencies that five (5) laptops were missing. The Commission subsequently informed all stakeholders about the missing laptops. Describing the missing laptops as BVRs is a deliberate attempt by certain groups to deceive the public, in order to sustain their unfounded allegations,” the statement said.
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The Commission explained that a BVR Kit includes essential components like a laptop, fingerprint scanner, digital camera, and printer. These components must be activated simultaneously to register voters.
“As the Commission has previously explained, a BVR Kit comprises several essential components: a Laptop, a Fingerprint Scanner, a Digital Camera and a printer among others. These components must be activated all together for the kits to be used to register voters. We repeat, the five (5) missing laptops on their own cannot be used to register voters,” the EC said.
The EC went on to say that the transparent processes established at all registration centres nationwide ensure that no entity, including the commission, can alter the daily recorded figures.
“The ongoing Limited Registration Exercise allows Agents of Political Parties to be present at all Registration Centres. Accredited Observer Groups and media personnel also have access to all Registration Centres across the country. Additionally, the Commission provides Agents of the Political Parties both Start-of-Day and End-of-Day Reports. This enables them cross cross-check the information received against their individual records to ensure that, at the end of each day, the total registered voters published by the Electoral Commission is not different from what the Political Parties collate at all Registration Centres nationwide,” they stated.
The Commission said the total number of registered voters on the 2023 voters register was 17,913,072 and the total number of voters registered during the ongoing limited exercise will be published by the commission prior to the exhibition of the provisional register.
The Commission acknowledged and said they promptly corrected errors in their previous infographics on challenge cases. They clarified that these errors did not affect the actual number of registered voters per district and region, which remains accurate.
