EC justifies publication of voter register on Google Drive

The Electoral Commission (EC) has justified the publication of the 2020 voter register on Google Drive.

The elections management body said it published the register in the spirit of transparency ahead of the December 7 presidential and parliamentary elections.

The EC published the Special Voting list for individuals who will vote early on Tuesday, December 1 as a result of their duties on Election Day.

The Special Voting covers security personnel, media personnel and election officials who will be unable to vote at the polling stations where they registered on the day of the general election.

It also captures polling stations across the 16 regions of the country and the ‘Name Reference List’ comes with a warning for individuals to desist from making extracts or copies without written permission from the EC.

The EC also hosted the voter register of over 17 million names on Google Drive despite being removed a few days later.

The publication has been met with mixed reaction from a section of the Ghanaian public with critics saying the EC breached the privacy law.

An IT Security Consultant, Prince Kpasra, says the Electoral Commission (EC) has become complicit after publishing the names of voters on a Google Drive but later removed.

But addressing journalists at a workshop in Accra on Tuesday, Chair of the EC Madam Jean Mensa said: “We are enjoined by law to publish the voters register."

“Indeed, the CI 127 requires that the final register is published in a manner in which the Commission deems fit."

“We are well aware that the ID cards had come to be used for other activities but for the Commission’s point of view that card is provided for voting purposes only. In this era of transparency and openness, the Commission believes that it is important to publish the register.”