NDC sues Electoral Commission over new voter roll
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has dragged the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana to court over its insistence on creating a new register.
The EC’s announcement to use the Ghana Card and passport as acceptable identifications have irked the party.
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The NDC filed the case at the Supreme Court (SC) arguing that the election management body could “compile a register of voters only once, and thereafter, revise it periodically, as may be determined by law.”
The party is seeking a “declaration that upon a true and proper interpretation of Article 45(a) of the 1992 Constitution, the 2nd Defendant [the EC] has the constitutional power to, and can, compile a register of voters only once, and thereafter revise it periodically, as may be determined by law. Accordingly, the 2nd Defendant can only revise the existing register of voters, and lacks the power to prepare a fresh register of voters for the conduct of the December 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections.”
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According to the NDC, the EC had excluded the use of Voter ID card as proof of nationality for the new register. For them, the move was “arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable and contrary to article 296 of the 1992 Constitution.”
The NDC is part of the Inter-Party Resistance Against the New Voter Register (IPRAN) which has taken a stance against the creation of a new register less than nine months to the presidential and parliamentary polls in December.
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The EC cited obsolete equipment, non-replaceable parts, and outdated recognition systems devoid of facial identification.
But the NDC discounted the claims, arguing that it was needless to spend huge sums of money on the register that has been used in recent local government elections.