ghananlpcommunity/ghana-gov-speeches-sentences huggingface dataset:
Multiples List The total number of multiple registrations on the Multiples list today stands at fifteen thousand, eight hundred and sixty (15,860).
We have seen a decrease in the number because some of these persons proceeded to court and had their objections overturned by the court.
By its name this list refers to the number of multiple registrations done by unique individuals.
It does not refer to unique individuals.
As such, if a person registered five (5) times, all five registrations will be recorded on the list although the five registrations were undertaken by one person.
The number of unique individuals who conducted the multiple registration is however seven thousand, eight hundred and ninety ( 7,890).
It is instructive to note that the Multiples List is not generated by the Staff of the Commission.
This list is generated by the ABIS system when it detects multiple registrations by a unique individual when the same set of fingerprints appears for persons bearing different names.
The system picks this up and isolates the registrant.
This is not done by staff of the commission.
I emphasize this to allay the fears or perception of the Commission deliberately removing names of registrants from the Register.
When a person with a unique set of fingerprints registers multiple times, this is flagged and picked up by the system and the names and details are isolated on the Multiples list.
Exceptions List Again, there have been perceptions that the EC is deliberating removing persons from the register and placing them on the Exceptions list.
This Exceptions list refers to unique individuals who conducted various forms of electoral malpractices including underage registration, registration by foreigners, and registration by persons not ordinarily resident in the area where they wish to register To date, we have a total number of 13,997 persons on the Exceptions list.
It is important to note that the list was developed as a result of the citizens at the grass root level challenging and objecting to registration of certain persons.
During the Registration Exercise a number of persons had their registrations challenged.
As a result, they were not provided with their Voter ID cards.
Additionally, during the Exhibition period, a number of persons had their registrations objected to for some of the reasons stated above.
It is important to know that those challenged at registration had to opportunity to appeal against the challenge to their registration by providing proof of their eligibility to be registered to the DRRC set up by the Electoral Commission to hear these cases.
Some of the challenged persons had their challenges overturned and these persons were then provided with their cards and included in the Voters Register.
Again, persons whose registrations were objected to during the Exhibition processes also had the opportunity to appear before the Magistrate.i.e.
the DRRO and appealed against their objections by presenting requisite documents and evidence to prove their eligibility.
A good number the objections were overturned, and these persons have been reflected in the register.
It is important to note that beyond this, a number of persons whose appeals were not granted by the DRRC and DRRO sought redress at the High Court.
A number of appeals were granted, and these persons have been included in the Voters Register as we speak.
Two of such cases occurred in Zubzugu, in the Northern where some 443 people have been included in the register following the granting of their appeal by the High Court.
Their Voter ID cards have since been issued to them.
Again, in Effutu, Winneba some fifty-two (52) persons appealed against the objection to their inclusion in the register.
The High Court overturned those objections and they have all been included in the Voters Register by the Commission.
As we speak their voters ID cards have been issued to them.
It is important to note that in the past the Multiples List and the Exception List were not published by the Commission.
However, in the spirit of transparency the Commission has decided to publish both lists on its website.
Both lists add up to a total number twenty one thousand, eight hundred and eighty seven (21,887)unique individuals.
For the information of the general public, the Exceptions and Multiples List prior to the 2016 election amounted to some eight hundred thousand 800,000 persons.
They were banned from voting in the 2016 Elections.
Today these persons have been given another opportunity to register and vote.
Gap in the 2020 Voters Register By gap, I am referring to the number of persons who registered during the just ended registration exercise, but whose names are not on the Final Register.
In total we have some five hundred and fifty (542) persons on this list.
The question some may ask is, how did we do this?
Following the Exhibition Exercise, the Commission undertook a thorough review and analysis of the Register and took steps to reconcile the number of persons who actually registered with the number of persons reflected in the Voters Register.
We relied on the End of Day reports generated by the Biometric Voter Registration Kits and compared the actual number of Registrants on the End of Day reports to the Provisional Voters Register.
At the end of the day, it was revealed that five hundred and forty two (542) persons had registered but were not captured on the Register.
The breakdown is as follows; S/N REGION TOTAL 1 Western 3 2 Central 10 3 Greater Accra 160 4 Volta 252 5 Eastern 9 6 Ashanti 34 7 Western North 0 8 Ahafo 8 9 Bono 7 10 Bono East 0 11 Oti 8 12 Northern 9 13 Savannah 19 14 Upper West 2 15 North East 2 16 Upper East 19 Total 542 This analysis revealed that 542 persons were not reflected in the Final Voters Register.
In our determination to ensure that every eligible person who registered is given the chance to exercise his or her franchise, the names of these persons will be published on our website and at our district offices throughout the country.
We apologise for the inconveniences caused to these persons and wish to assure them that they will be provided with the opportunity to vote.
They will be manually verified, and the Commission will send their details and Form 1A and 1C’s to the Polling Stations where they registered.
They will not be denied their right to vote.
It is important to note that following the data freeze, the Commission received some court decisions reversing the decisions of the DRRO i.e.
In total (55) persons on the Multiples List had their objections overturned.
What it means is that the Commission is enjoined to grant them an opportunity to vote.
However, since the Data had been frozen at the time, we received the court decision, they could not be included in the data base.
We are adding them to the missing names list to enable them vote.
Additionally, some 233 persons were placed in wrong Polling Stations.
These persons have also been added to the Missing Names List at the Polling Stations where they originally registered.
They will be provided the opportunity to vote and will be verified manually using the Manual Verification Forms.
In total, the list of missing names who will be given the opportunity to vote stands at 830 persons across thirty eight thousand, six hundred and twenty two (38,622) Polling Stations.
The list will be posted on the Website.
Final Voters Register On The Website The EC is enjoined by the electoral laws as outlined in C.I.
127 to publish the certified copy of the Final Voters Register in a manner determined by the Commission.
As such, the Commission has elected to make the Register available in two (2) electronic formats to allow registered Voters seamlessly check their details ahead of the Elections.
The Final Voters Register is available through: The Commission’s website - On the Commission’s website, the Register has been published in two searchable databases.
One for special voting and one for the December 7 th voting.
Voters registered for Special Voting on the 1 st of December are advised to use the Special Register option.
Every other Voter should use the Main Register option.
To access their details, registered voters are required to enter their 10-digit Voter ID card number on the website application to confirm their details ahead of the 2020 December Polls.
The second option available for checking a person’s details is by using the USSD code - *711*2020# The Commission has provided a USSD code for registered voters to check their details on all networks.
To access their details, registered voters need to dial *711*2020# on any phone and network, enter their Voter ID card number and the Polling Station Code where they registered.
Please note that this information is available on the voter’s Voter Card.
A valid voter will get a response on their phone which will contain: Full Name of the voter, their Voter ID Number and Date of Birth, their Polling Station Code and Name.
The good news is that, both services are FREE.
The publication of the Final Voters Register in these two (2) electronic formats will enable Voters ascertain their Polling Station details to enable them go through a seamless voting process on election day.
We entreat persons who have issues with their registrations to contact their nearest district offices across the country for immediate remedy.
Special Voting As you may be aware, the Electoral Commission reached out to the security agencies and media houses to inform them about the Special Voting Facility, The letter requested them to send details of their members who wished to take part in the Special Voting Exercise to the Commission, I am pleased to note that the list of Special Voting has been compiled.
The list has been published on the website of the Commission.
Additionally, the Commission has made it possible for persons on the Special Voting List to check their details using the Code.
We encourage all who applied to take time to check their details before Tuesday, 1 st December, 2020.
This year the Commission has provided the Special Voting list to representatives of institutions who applied to vote during the Special Voting.
The final Special Voting list contains one hundred and nine thousand five hundred and fifty-seven persons (109,557 Persons) from the various security agencies, media house and the Electoral Commission.
It is instructive to note that this is the highest number the Commission has recorded for Special Voting in its history.
It is also important to mention that the Commission received a number of names well after deadline.
While some were considered, others came a little too late after the data base had been frozen.
Once the data base is frozen no changes/ transfers can be made.
All lists received after the data freezes could not be processed.
We entreat the Public to disregard information going around on the Social Media by some “experts” that the Commission has prevented Security Agencies from registering.
Every Officer who applied on time, and provided the correct ID card number was duly registered Unfortunately, we rather had an issue with our media partners who have collaborated with us all this while.
There were some discrepancies regarding the lists submitted by the GJA.
The soft copy of the list was different from the hard copy which contained more Applicants.
Unfortunately, this was not made known to the Electoral Commission’s team.
As such only the names in the soft copy were reflected in the Special Voting list.
The Commission regrets this and wishes to assure the GJA and NMC and Journalists in general of our support to their efforts.
To mitigate this, the Commission has instructed its field officials to give preferential treatment to media personnel who possess the Accreditation Cards of the Electoral Commission.
Special Voting For the information of the General Public, the Special Voting Exercise will take place at selected locations in the two hundred and seventy-five (275) constituencies on the 1 st of December 2020.
In total 109,557 Persons made up of security personnel, media and staff of the EC applied to take part in this exercise.
We entreat those who applied for this facility to verify their details and locations on the Commissions website.
The Commission also published the locations for the Special Voting in the News Papers on Monday the 23 rd of November 2020.
Distinguished Citizens, all is set for the Special Voting on Tuesday.
To date, officers have been recruited and trained.
All materials have been distributed in sufficient quantities and the BVD’s prepared and deployed.
We expect a near 100% turnout and are confident that the outcome will be peaceful, credible transparent and orderly God being our helper.
As the good book states a horse is prepared for battle but victory comes from God.
We will keep you updated on the outcome of the Special Voting in the course of the week.
We thank you for taking time to be here with us this morning.
As my friends in the media say, until we come your way again, it’s been me Jean Mensa reporting from the Electoral Commission Headquarters in Accra.
May God bless our homeland Ghana and make our nation great and strong LET PEACE REIGN Thank you for your attention.
SPEECH DELIVERED BY THE CHAIRPERSON OF THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION AT THE ASSESSMENT OF THE 2020 ELECTION WITH THE IPAC AT ALISA HOTEL, RIDGE ARENA HALL ON TUESDAY THE 18 TH OF MAY 2021 AT 8:3 0AM A very good morning to you all.
We thank the good Lord for His mercies that are new every morning and rejoice in the day that He has made.
As a Commission, we are mindful to acknowledge that we could not have come this far if the good Lord had not been on our side.
For this we are truly grateful.
On behalf of the Electoral Commission of Ghana, I am pleased to welcome you all to this meeting of IPAC aimed at assessing the processes leading to the 2020 Election and the Election itself.
As a Commission keen to learn and improve upon its work, processes, and successes, we place a high premium on this two (2) day workshop.
It has been four (4) months since we held the 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary elections.
Over this period, we have reviewed the processes that preceded, characterized, and followed the Elections to ascertain the resilience of our electoral processes and our performance at the just-ended elections, and I know you have too.
Much water has passed under the bridge, but it is important that at a point in time, we come together as actors and stakeholders in Ghana’s electoral processes, to take stock of the processes, strategies and approaches we adopted in the 2020 Elections, highlight the areas that need to be strengthened, and build consensus on a reform agenda for the Commission for the coming years.
In this regard, we should collectively examine the challenges we faced in the electoral processes of 2020 and identify what did not work and why.
This is important to gain insight and understanding of why certain targets were not achieved.
It is equally important that having successfully carried out General Elections amidst the unprecedented circumstances of a global pandemic, we pause to celebrate the successes we achieved as a nation in carrying out Elections under such circumstances, with a decorum and a level of efficiency that earned us the admiration of our neighbours across the sub-region and the international community as a whole.
Why should we gloss over our achievements while the international community applauds us?
As a nation, as a Commission and as stakeholders, it is important that we recognize the feats we achieved through the 2020 electoral processes for the purpose of documenting best practices and experience, and to ensure that the successful strategies we adopted do not fall through the cracks of inordinate fault-finding and critique.
Constructive critique is a vital part of any institutional-building and learning process, but so is celebration of success!
Ladies and Gentlemen, as state institutions we tend to gloss over our achievements.
Instead, as a country, our default mode is to cast assessments of public initiatives or exercises in the mould of fault-finding missions armed with a fine-tooth comb, seeking earnestly to find fault.
Sadly, we are slow to recognise where we have put good processes and systems in place, much less document them.
In a bid to improve upon our past performance, we rush to propose new recommendations when the old processes and structures are working very well.
We need to be guided by the adage that “if it aint broke, don’t fix it”.
I have no doubt that in advanced democracies, achievements are not glossed over, or taken as lightly as we do in our country.
No wonder we find ourselves seeking to learn from advanced democracies when in fact we already have the experience and the know-how.
In any assessment, it is important that we understand why things did not work before we introduce reforms and new processes.
We need to undertake sober reflection, introspection and discussion on why certain processes worked, and why others did not.
I believe that it is only after we have done this, that we will identify reforms that are practical and workable.
For this reason, let us not rush to propose recommendations for processes that are already working well.
We must remember that we all will have to live with the recommendations that we make.
But equally, let us not be slow to propose changes that address real challenges.
Again, we must remember that we will have to live with the changes we failed to make.
Let us dissect our own recommendations with dispassion to ascertain their practicability and usefulness to the entire electoral process.
As leaders in your own institutions, you do know that though some recommendations appear attractive on paper, they may not be practical in reality.
We must remember also that our recommendations should be based as much on our achievements as our challenges!
Ladies and gentlemen, let us celebrate our successes of the 2020 Elections and document them; for there is so much knowledge, good experiences and best practice residing in the Electoral Commission of Ghana.
Permit me, in this regard, to take you down the memory lane of the Election 2020 and to list some processes we need to draw lessons and recommendations from, and document.
First of all, we need to acknowledge the fact that it took less than six (6) months to conduct a Presidential and Parliamentary elections that would usually take 2 years to undertake.
We must applaud the hard work of EC staff across every region and district of this country, for the yeoman’s job they did.
From the introduction of the new Biometric Voter Management System, comprising new Biometric Verification and Registration devices and software through to the replacement of the entire Voters Register to the Election day.
It took the Commission six months from the 30 th of June to the 7 th December to successfully implement all its processes.
It is important, for our own work today, and for future leaders and staff of the EC, that we document how this was achieved.
We need to celebrate the fact that in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic and its uncertainties, as a country we were able to undertake all our electoral processes, from the preparation of brand-new Voters Register with over 17 million persons in 38 days, to the Exhibition of Register to the filing of Nominations to the Election Day activities without the spread of the COVID-19 virus and that no life was lost to COVID-19 as a result of our activities.
We need to mark and document the fact that as a result of the stringent protocols put in place, the number of reported cases stood at zero by the end of the Registration Exercise, bearing in mind that the registration exercise was conducted at the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
How this was achieved needs to be documented as best practice.
Despite the apprehensions around the COVID-19, the enthusiasm and participation of citizens in all our processes was high and beyond expectations.
Indeed, despite the fears of a low turnout, we registered over 17 million eligible Ghanaians in 38 days and recorded a turnout of 79% on election day as compared to 67% in 2016.
What accounted for the citizens active participation needs to be documented.
Let us celebrate the absence of long queues at almost all Polling Stations nationwide at the time when advanced democracies such as the USA experienced long queues, for several days at their Polling Stations.
It is important that we document policies and processes that led to the absence of long queues.
We need to celebrate the fact that for the first time in our history, the Government of Ghana financed the Elections in its totally and that there was no donor assistance and funding.
We need to celebrate the fact that as a country, we successfully employed and deployed high quality robust technology to enhance the credibility of our electoral processes.
We successfully used biometric technology to ensure that only unique individuals were registered to vote, doing away with the phenomenon of double registration and multiple voting.
It is important to document how this was done.
We need to recognise the fact that as a country, technology was deployed to enable a section of our citizenry to check their registration details over the telephone at minimal cost.
In fact, for the first time in our history, registrants were able to check their registration details all through to the Election day.
We need to celebrate and highlight the fact that for the first time in our history, we managed to reduce the cost of election by some 41% compared to the 2016, in spite of inflation and hikes in prices.
As a country, we reduced the cost of elections from thirteen Dollars (13USD) per person to seven dollars, seventy cent (7.70USD) per person.
It is not often we hear of such news and we need to record how this was achieved.
We need to highlight the fact that we succeeded in saving our dear nation a whopping sum of 90 million USD i.e.
522 million Ghana Cedi, a time when the cost of elections world-over keeps increasing.
And mind you, these savings were achieved in spite of additional costs associated with COVID-19 .i.e.
PPE’s and materials and the airlifting of our offshore items which came at huge costs and in spite of the fact that unlike 2016, we paid full taxes on all items.
Again, we made these savings in spite of the fact that we increased our Polling Stations by 10 thousand (10,000) and hired an additional 88 thousand,6 hundred and 22 temporary officers.
And so, there is a lot to celebrate.
There is a lot to be thankful for.
This is not to say that there is no room for improvement.
For us at the Electoral Commission the sky is our horizon.
We will not rest on our oars but will continue to collaborate with you and other stakeholders to discuss strategies and innovations that will lead to the strengthening of our systems.
I will now turn my attention to the challenges we experienced with the 2020 electoral process.
One issue that confronted us as a nation was the phenomenon of rejected ballots.
To date, in spite of the advances made in the design of the ballot, we have continued to witness a disturbing trend of a high number of rejected ballots.
The Commission spent considerable effort in designing a ballot paper to reduce the incidence of rejected ballots.
We created a wide space between each candidate’s box to prevent the mark of the thumb from seeping into the next box.
And yet, we still recorded 3 hundred and 14 thousand, 9 hundred and one rejected ballots.
Unfortunately, our laws do not allow us to take possession of the ballots until after a year but we intend to undertake an audit to determine the root cause and find workable solutions to eliminate this problem.
Another challenge we are keen to address is the use of Manual Verification.
As a Commission, we were hoping to reduce this significantly as we used both facial features and fingerprints to register applicants.
My colleagues assure me that the 11,000 recorded instances of manual verification is relatively small, compared to the number of Voters on the Register and the number of Polling Stations .i.e.
38 thousand, 6 hundred and 22.
The 11,000 cases compared to the Polling Station and Voters Register amounts to 0.08% of the total votes cast.
This is very insignificant.