A senior research fellow with the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), Mr Kwesi Jonah, has said there were incidents that minors got registered in the just-ended mass voter registration exercise undertaken by the Electoral Commission of Ghana.

He said although the registration exercise largely went well, “if you saw the number of minors who queued to register, you’d be surprised”.

“Under-18-year-olds registered and also guaranteed for others to register”, Mr Jonah told Kwabena Prah Jr. on Accra100.5FM’s morning show Ghana Yensom on Tuesday, 11 August 2020.

“There’s been several complaints to that effect”, he responded when asked by the host if he personally witnessed incidents of minors registering, insisting: “Registration of minors happened and when you see some of the pictures, you’d know that there were minors who got registered”.

In his assessment of the process, he said before the registration exercise, the names in the old register were about 15.8 million.

“So, the number was expected to increase for a new register but that didn’t happen even though the EC exceeded its 15 million target”, he observed.

He added: “The population estimate of the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) of Ghanaians who are 18 years and above is 17.1 million. About 16.7 million people were registered in the recently-ended registration exercise. So, you cannot say the register is so bloated”.

Mr Jonah also noted that even though there were fears of frequent equipment breakdowns which could have slowed down the process, that didn’t happen in most cases.

“The machines generally worked well”, he said.

Among the things that did not go well with the exercise, Mr Jonah said, included the associated violence, which he described as “worrying”.

Two people lost their lives as a result of such violence.

Mr Jonah said even though the EC is not responsible for security, it is important that the security taskforce ensured that at all the centres and registrants were protected.

“Not a single life should have been lost because of a voter registration exercise”, he said.