Towards 2012 Elections and beyond:The Biometric approach

By Kwesi Yirenkyi Boateng

Since the 1990’s, most African countries embraced democracy as a way to govern themselves and have since been trying to entrench the democratic principles in their governance.

This is very true in the sense that many countries have shifted to the era where the ballot boxes is much preferred  in determining the political leadership of a country that would help manage the aspiration and expectation of the people, than the barrel of the gun.

Ever since, general elections have been a crucial political event in every country,in their quest to select and elect the right leadership to help develop the people and reduce the scourge of poverty as well improve upon the welfare of the citizenry.

However, concerns of manipulation of electoral results, abuse of incumbency, lack of transparency in the electoral processes, that occasionally mare the beauty of the elections has prompted reforms in the electoral process, to ensure transparent and credible results that may be acceptable by all.

It is evident in the fact more than 22 African between 2011 and 2012 have and are about to hold general elections to elect their leaders. Although some countries including Nigeria, Ivory Coast and D.R. Congo have had their elections with their attendant challenges, the beef of many who challenged results were largely due to electoral disputes and problems of ensuring credibility.

In line with instituting reforms in the electoral process Ghana’s Electoral Commission (EC) as well as other Electoral Commissions across the African Continent, have adopted theBiometric Voter Registration System (BVRS).

Indeed, the good news could not have come at any opportune time than now when Ghana’s democracy, touted as a model in the West African Sub-region, would be put to yet another test come December 7, 2012.

Impending Biometric Voter Registration in Ghana

With a good history of electoral successes and the peaceful manner in which power was peacefully transferred from one government to another in 2001 and 2009, all eyes would be on the Ghana to see the outcome of the Biometric Registration Exercise schedule to start simultaneously in all Districts and Regions of Ghana from March 24 to May 5, 2012.

The Chairman of the EC, Dr. KwadwoAfari-Gyan has been explaining that 7,000 kits would be used for the biometric registration at the 23, 000 polling stations in the country, adding that since the kits were not enough, polling stations in every district had been grouped into clusters, each consisting of four polling stations.

He noted that a six member team of operators would take-charge of the registration of eligible voters in each cluster for 40 days, that is 10 days at each polling station within the cluster.

*Bishop Afrifah-Agyekum of Koforidua, going through the dummy biometric registration.

In line with the principle of where you register is where you vote, Dr. Afari-Gyan stated that registration of eligible voters during the exercise would be done at the registration centres, which would later serve as polling stations in the general elections come December.

A registered voter would be issued with an Identity (ID) Card embossed with the person’s picture on the spot and a bar code containing the ID number.

Although the biometric voter registration would ensure the capturing of features of an eligible voter with their pictures, Dr. Afari-Gyan said the kit would not know the difference between the thumbprint of a foreigner and that of Ghanaian and between a minor and that of an adult.

He therefore called on Ghanaians to be vigilant in the entire registration to prevent minors and foreigners from registering.   

What is the Biometric Voter Registration System?

Biometric voter registration represents a means to accurately capture unique physical features of an individual in addition to demographic data of the Ghanaian voter. The intent of implementing this project is to prevent multiple voter registration and voting, as well as mitigating the incidence of voter fraud.

The Biometric Voter Registration process captures facial images in conformance to the quality requirement and in compliance with quality standards.

The system is programmed to automatically capture multiple sequential facial images of eligible voters over a period of seconds to ensure that choices are available with both eyes open.

Automatically, checks for brightness to ensure acceptable image quality and optional manual cropping to ensure facial image quality are inbuilt in the manual kits.

Additionally, the system captures and stores finger images into templates of minutia in compliance with quality standards for use in the Automatic Finger Identification Software (AFIS).

Finger image data are stored in BMP and compressed file formats. These images may be converted with current or future generation software fingerprint templates for processing (primarily used for identification or matching).

Biometric Voter Registration System has been engineered to capture multiple fingerprint image samples from each finger and ensure all samples have sufficient image quality and is convertible into template minutia.

The systems automatically detects and ensures that fingerprint images are captured with acceptable contrast ratios, sufficient ridge quality and includes the detection and prevention of partial finger prints on the sensor.

The Catholic Church’s contribution

There is no doubt whatsoever that the Catholic Church in Africa has aside its evangelizing role, been a responsible partner in the socio-economic development of people and their countries, and its continued support toward the institution of rule of law, good governance, peaceful elections and the consolidation of gains made in democracies in Africa.

It is worth nothing that in September 2011, the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) in collaboration with the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) organiseda five-day Workshopon Elections in Africafor participants from 27 African Countries in Accra.

*Members of the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference with EC Officials

The workshopthemed: The Role of the Church in Supporting Peaceful and Credible Elections in Africa, was a response to the commitment of the Catholic Church and its Faith-Based Associates to support actions and measures that would ensure peaceful and credible elections in the 12 countries that held their elections last year and 14 others, including Ghana, who are vigorously preparing for their elections in 2012.

With the observationof some African countries being plagued by protracted inter-communal and electoral violence over the last three decades, the Church saw the need to strengthen cooperation at the national, regional and continental level in promoting common interests and addressing shared challenges with a focus on the need for promoting good governance, as poor governance is often the source of intimidations, violence or conflicts in Africa before during and after elections.

Thus participants in a communiqué at the end of the workshop resolved to among other things promote the civic education that ensure that citizens make informed choices free from ethnic or religious affiliations; strengthen ecumenical and inter-faith platforms for greater engagement in electoral processes and improve engagement with civil society especially women, the youth and the media.

Indeed, it is with this impetus that the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference (GCBC), in pursuance of the Bishops civic and voter education agenda to complement the efforts of the EC in educating the public on the biometric voter registration system, that the Department of Human Development of theNational Catholic Secretariat (NCS), in partnership with STAR-Ghana, a pooled-funding mechanism, organized a day’s seminar on February 2, 2012, at the NCS Conference room in Accra for the Bishops.

In recognition of the Church’s contribution to peaceful elections, the Deputy Chairman of the EC in-charge of Finance and Administration, Mr. David Adenzee Kangah, who briefed the Prelates, together with some representatives of Heads of other Faiths on the biometric voter system, thanked the Catholic Church and other Religious Bodies for their contributions toward peaceful elections over the years.

Calling on Ghanaians to defend the electoral process, Mr. Kangah appealed to them to continue to educate their members on the forthcoming biometric registration.   

After a review of the 2008 general elections, he explainedthat the EC adoptedthe biometric voter registration, as a reformto improve upon the electoral process, noting that one of the significant departures of the previous systems was the choice of direct data entry method of data capturing.

“Instead of bringing down completed registration form to a central location (Head Office), to be captured into a computer systemto be captured into a computer system, biometric registration kits (comprising laptop computers, fingerprint scanners and digital cameras) would be made available at registration centres to capture the registration forms directly,” he said.            

Aspart of preparations for the upcoming biometric voter registration exercise, Mr. Kangah observed that new policies and procedures had been put in place to meet the challenges of the biometric technology that has been adopted.

Significantly, Most Rev. Peter K. Attuahene and Most Rev. Joseph Afrifah-Agyekum, Bishops of Goaso and Koforidua respectively were taken through a demonstration of the of the biometric registration conducted by representative of Superlock Technologies Ltd, trainers of registration operators for the registration.

In response to a question about the possibility of Persons with Disability (amputees) registering, Mr. Kangah said the EC would take note of such exceptional cases.

Among Heads of other Faith represented at the briefing with the Bishops were Very Rev. Henry Ampaw-Asiedu from the Methodist Church of Ghana; Rev. Dominic NiiTettehTackie from the Pentecostal Church and Alhaji Adam MusahAbubakar from the Office of the Chief Imam, as well as stakeholders including Mr. Emmanuel Bombande, Executive Secretary of West African Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP).

Others were the Very Rev. Nicholas Afriyie, Secretary General of NCS, Mr. Samuel ZanAkologo, Executive Secretary of the Department of Human Development,  Rev. Fr. Patrick Amos, Director of Governance, Justice and Peace Directorate and Mr. Dan Dzide, Executive Secretary of the Department of Social Communications, all of the NCS and Mr. Isaac Fritz Andoh, Managing Editor of The Catholic StandardNewspaper and Rev. Bro. Stephen Domelevo, SVD, Director of Catholic Digest TV programme.

The Most Rev. Anthony Adanuty, Vice President of the GCBC thanked Mr. Kangah for enlightening the Bishops on the registration system and expressed the hope that the EC and stakeholders including Religious Bodies would work together in educating Ghanaians on the importance of the registration.

The question of verification

Commenting on the much talked about verification of the biometric voter registration, Dr. Afari-Gyan, admitted that “although the biometric voter registration would ensure the capturing of features of an eligible voter with their pictures, the kit would not know the difference between the thumbprint of a foreigner and that of Ghanaian and between a minor and that of an adult”.

He together with his deputy however, urged Ghanaians to have trust in the electoral system, be vigilant and willing to protect the electoral process.

In spite of the fact that the EC had adopted measures to check these cases, Mr. Kangah appealed to Ghanaians to volunteer information about aliens who might try to register and vote.

Conclusion

It is essentially true that reforms are inevitable when growth and progress are a necessary evil without any better alternatives. And as it is largely accepted that democracy thrives on functional institutions, the EC’s move to adopt and introduce the biometric voter registration is a worthy reform and an approach that deserves commendation.

Undeniably, the EC’s decision to institute a biometric voter register, which promises to build a credible data base of voters in the country, help reduce the incidences of multiple voter registration and voter fraud is only a way to address challenges in the electoral process.

So far as human beings and for that matter Ghanaians remain at the heart of any successes story in elections, we must all uphold the national interest not to do anything untoward, but head the call by the Chairman of the EC and his deputy to trust in the electoral process and work to ensure success.

The EC meant well with the biometric voter registration, thus all stakeholders including the political parties must join in efforts to educate the public, especially their supporters. They must help diffuse the notion of supporters that election are a do or die affair and take cognizance of the fact that as governments come and go, so would political parties be. This underscores the fact no political party is greater than the country.