In its efforts at enhancing the transparency of its operations, the Electoral Commission of Ghana has brought about many changes and improvements in the Ghanaian electoral process.
First is the compilation of a credible electoral roll with the active collaboration and participation of the political parties in 1995. The voter’s registers used in the 1992 general elections were alleged to have contained a number of technical errors which included a larger than statistically possible number of registered voters. The causes of the errors were found to be, among others, double entries due to human error and software problems, the inconsistent listing of names, and failure of the Commission to remove the names of voters who had expired since 1987 when the registers were first compiled.
In order to allay the fears which the anomalies in the existing electoral roll had generated in certain sections of the voting public, the compilation of the new registers in 1995 were arranged to be observed by some eighty thousand (80,000) party agents. The registration was done at twenty thousand (20,000) registration/polling centres in the country and each centre was attended by four (4) party agents made up of two (2) for the party in Government and two (2) from the opposition parties. The number of party agents to observe proceedings at the registration/polling centres was agreed upon by the Commission with the IPAC (Inter Party Advisory Committee).
