Bright Simons insists 15m registered voters means old electoral roll was not bloated

The old voters register which is about to be discarded by the Electoral Commission (EC) on account that it is over-bloated with names of non-Ghanaians, dead people and been overstretched still appears to have some staunch defendants.

One of such defendants is policy think tank Imani Ghana, which in spite of the EC’s near completion of the compilation of a new voters roll still maintains that the old register was not bloated as suggested by the Commission.

Putting forth an argument in this regard, Vice President of Imani Ghana, Bright Simons has said new figures obtained by the Electoral Commission in the compilation process is evidence enough to prove that the register was not at any point over-bloated.

The Electoral Commission announced that it has so far captured 15,117,438 registrants after 31 days of the voters registration exercise.

Analyzing data on voter population in Ghana from 2000 to 2020 to buttress his argument, Bright Simons employed statistics of death rate, demographics, others to prove that indeed the relative rise of voter population in Ghana over the years has once again featured in the ongoing exercise.

Speaking on Point of View he argued that, “When you look at the numbers and you look at the rates of increase (reference to the voter population in Ghana from 2000 to 2020) there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that there is some sudden, abrupt, unexpected, inexplicable even that at some point are somehow leading to an inflation situation. Absolutely not. So you go from 10 million and then you go to 14 million after eight years. Then you add another 1 million more in 2016, then you add another one 1.2 million more when you do another limited registration…”



Adding that, “If you do a thread, you will realize that the rate of increase in the register has been pretty consistent. What is it about those trends that suggest that at some material moment there were some attempts to inflate the numbers?”

Bright Simons is convinced that the steady rise in the voter population over the years could account for the EC’s conclusion that the old electoral roll is bloated with names of non-Ghanaians and unqualified persons.

Based on his analysis of statistic available to him, Mr Simons estimated that by the end of the registration exercise, EC should have about 16.7 million eligible voters captured in the roll.

Taking into consideration the existing global health crisis. “There are people in the middle classes who are not registering because they don’t want to get infected,” he added.

The Electoral Commission is expected to conclude the registration exercise Thursday, August 6, 2020, but the Commission has scheduled a mop-up exercise in its district offices on 8th and 9th August. This forms part of the Commissions efforts to reach all eligible voters in the country.

Source: www.ghanaweb.com