Highlights from the Special IPAC Meeting

The Electoral Commission (EC) met with all Political Parties, Presidential Candidates, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), and donor partners on Tuesday, October 1, 2024, under the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) framework.

The special meeting aimed to address concerns over the 2024 Voters Register, following repeated calls from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) for a Forensic Audit of the Provisional Voters Register (PVR).

The Public would recall that on Tuesday, 17^th September, 2024, the NDC embarked on a demonstration after which they submitted a petition to the EC which demanded, among others, a Forensic Audit of the PVR. The EC responded to the NDC’s petition in a letter dated 26^th September, 2024, saying among others, that, “…the Commission is of the view that the legal and administrative processes laid down to clean the PVR have not been fully exhausted to justify the calls for a Forensic Audit.”

The Commission however, in the interest of transparency and in pursuit of peaceful, free, fair and credible Elections, called for this Special IPAC meeting which took place today, 1^st October, 2024 and for the first time was covered live by TV and radio networks across the country.

Attendance

In attendance were all registered Political Parties (NDC, NPP, CPP, LPG, GFP, GCPP, PAG, NDP, APC, GUM, PNC, PPP), CSOs, members of the diplomatic community and other Stakeholders, including the media. 

EC’s Address to IPAC

Addressing the Special IPAC, the Chairperson of the Commission, Mrs. Jean Mensa, highlighted the following:

• The Special IPAC Meeting was to provide update on the process to clean the PVR and to receive input from the political parties.

• All subsequent IPAC meetings will be covered by the media.

• All identified discrepancies following the Exhibition of the PVR have been largely resolved.

• Discrepancies initially identified cut across all regions, not just in any particular region to disenfranchise voters in a particular region.

• The Register at this point is only provisional. It is a draft. It is not perfect and it is not final.

• The Exhibition exercise provides the legal and administrative basis for cleaning the provisional voters register.

• The PVR today is different and more accurate than what was provided to the political parties in August 2024.

• No voters were denied the right to vote in the 2020 Elections, having followed the same 4-pronged approach to cleaning the 2020 Register. The same approach is being adopted to clean the 2024 Register.

• Production of the Final Voters Register is a process, not a one-time event. As we speak, District Officers are currently implementing decisions of District Registration Review Officers (DRROs). After that process, there will be verification of the implementation of DRROs decisions by the Regional Directorate.

• The Commission will re-exhibit the corrected PVR online via the short code *711*51#.

• Voters are urged to check their details free of charge.

• The Commission will announce a time period during which Political Parties, Voters and other Stakeholders may report any further discrepancies in the corrected PVR, before the Final Voters Register is printed for the 2024 Elections.

 

• The Commission will provide copies of the corrected PVR to the Political Parties and also provide them with a template that they can use to report any further discrepancies.

• The Commission is of the view that the legal and administrative processes laid down to clean the PVR have not been fully exhausted to justify the calls for a Forensic Audit. We entreat the public to trust us to carry out our mandate.

• The Commission is committed to organising a transparent, peaceful, free, fair and credible 2024 Elections.

Presentation by the EC IT Department

1. The process of voters registration was demonstrated
2. The process of voter transfers was demonstrated
3. Exhibition of the PVR at is done at 4 levels
   1. Screening at the Exhibition Centres
   2. Screening at District Offices
   3. Screening at Regional Level
   4. Screening at National Level by Electoral Services and IT Department
4. Issues Identified with PVR during the Exhibition
   1. Missing voters
   2. Voters placed in wrong polling stations
   3. Accidental duplicates
   4. Voters transferred but not on Absent Voters List
   5. Applicants wrongly placed on Multiples List
   6. Voters appearing in both PVR and Multiples List
   7. Voters appearing in PVR with Multiple IDs

The Current State of the Voters Register

5. Total Number of Registered Voters – 18,772,795 
6. Females – 9,690,173 
7. Males –  9,082,622
8. First Time Voters – 708,282
9. Special Voters List – 131,475
10. Transferred Voters List – 332,110
11. Proxy Voters List – 2,167
12. Exceptions List – 32,974
13. Multiples List – 26,798

Other Issues

14. Offline registrations are prone to corruption of biometrics. Persons whose biometrics were corrupted were invited for inclusion. No voters have been deleted from the register.
15. In relation to transfers, the new PVR will only contain the 2024 transfers.
16. Following the Pusiga incident, the Commission together with the service providers initiated a process to check the PVR to find out if there are similar illegal voter transfers using spoofed images from the voter ID cards of the voters concerned. The report on that process will be available next week.
17. Missing Voters List will be made available at the Polling Stations. The Form 1A and Form 1C of the affected voters will be available at the Polling Stations so that if they show up with their voter ID cards and the cards match their Form 1A and Form 1C details, they will be allowed to vote.
18. Voters with numbers and other characters in Names were also flagged by IT system. However, voting is via biometrics, which do not know name, date of birth or sex. Once the voter is on the register and his or her biometrics were captured, they can be verified to vote on Election Day even if they have numbers and other characters in their name.

EC Chairperson’s Concluding Remarks

On the issue of Trust

• Trust is based on transparency, sharing of information, responsiveness and addressing issues in a timely manner.
• From registration through to declaration of result, the EC has been transparent and has been providing information to the citizens since 2020.
• We have been responsive, admitted to our errors and addressed the issues in a timely manner.
• We have nothing to hide. We have opened all our processes to the media and through the media provided the citizenry the opportunity to observe the processes.
• Today, we have opened up IPAC to the whole world and this is what we will do going forward.
• Our C.I.s provide for transparent processes from registration, with party agents receiving start-of-day and end-of-day reports. Political Parties can collate with near-precision the number of persons who registered on each given day.
• When it comes to the Exhibition, the law embeds transparency that allows the whole world to check the PVR.
• The District Registration Review process after Exhibition should also engender trust in our processes.
• Balloting for positions on the Ballot Paper is also transparent and covered live by the media.
• Nomination – there are reports from the nomination committees that also shows the transparency of the process. 
• The Commission provides full details of companies involved in the printing of ballot papers to the political parties.
• The political parties record serial numbers of all ballot papers printed.
• The political parties accompany the ballot papers to the regional police armouries
• Our voting is transparent, with transparent ballot boxes. Voting is done in the full glare of the public. 
• The counting is done in the full glare of the public.
• The political party agents can request for re-counting twice.
• At the Polling Station, the party agents sign the results and copies of the results are posted on the wall of the Polling Station.
• The results move from the Polling Station to the Constituency Collation Centre to the Regional Collation Centre and finally to the National Collation Centre.
• Media houses are able to collate results and about 8 media houses in 2020 had results that were close to that of the Commission. 
• The Commission has been transparent and has been using the Let The Citizen Know process to inform the public and that should engender trust in the Commission.  
• Within 2 weeks the EC will provide the political parties with copies of the revised PVR and also exhibit it online.