Allowing birth certificates for voter ID would be a ‘retrograde step’ – Ghana’s Supreme Court
Two combined applications testing decisions of Ghana’s attorney general and related to the national elections scheduled for 7 December 2020, have been decided by that country’s Supreme Court. Determined to clean up Ghana’s voter register, the AG gazetted new regulations. Among them was the decision not to allow the old (current) voter identification cards to be used to identify people wanting to register as voters on the new, updated list.
The decision in the case had already been announced by the court a few weeks ago, with its reasons deferred until now. Applicants in the two matters had asked that the gazetted non-inclusion of current voter identification cards and of birth certificates should be declared unconstitutional.
All seven judges who heard the matter agreed to reject this proposition.