The National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, has impulsed the Electoral Commission to accept other identification documents as alternatives to the Ghana Card during the upcoming voter registration drive.

Though the EC has assured that no willing Ghanaian of voting age will be left behind, he argued in a panel discussion on TV that, “If it happens that by that time [future voter registrations happen], everybody has the card, nobody suffers anything.”

“Why don’t you put in some safeguards in case that projection doesn’t turn out to be as you expect, then there is a safeguard to deal with the shortcoming, and you are rather closing all the safeguards and banking your hope on somebody’s promise.” Director of Electoral Services at the Electoral Commission, Serebour Quaicoe has said on several platforms that the EC intends to make the Ghana Card the sole means of identification during the

voter registration exercise.

According to him, the decision to use the Ghana Card is to prevent chaos at polling stations during elections. He cited confusion that emerged out of the 2020 election at the polling stations.

Meanwhile, on the EC’s website as of September 27, 2022, only two modes of identification have been outlined. They are; a valid National

Identification Card (Ghana Card) and a passport. This could mean that the EC is yet to update their website on the new identification process. In the absence of the valid ID’s above, an applicant must submit one completed Identification Guarantee Form endorsed by two voters. A proposed C.I. titled Public Regulations 2021 is anticipated to govern the next continuous voter registration campaign and is intended to replace these documents with the Ghana Card as the new law. Mr. Nketiah also stressed that the EC should not only rely on the National Identification Authority to execute its plans for future elections.