Ghanaian political party previously against biometrics now developing its own internal database

It has been reported that The National Democratic Congress, a major political party in Ghana will build a biometric database for its members to better organize the party.

This is particularly surprising, as during the last presidential election in the country, the NDC came out against using a biometric system, saying it would make the electoral process cumbersome and according to a report in Ghanaweb, that it could cause cancer.

The party has confirmed the plans for a biometric database, though has remained mum on the cost. According to the Ghanaweb report, some digging from the Concerned Ghanaians against Electoral Fraud (COGEF UK) has found that the project will cost them a total of $43m, in consultation with Superlock Technologies. In addition, COGEF says the Electoral Commission in the country has expressed reservations about the system and procurement.

Reported previously in BiometricUpdate.com, Ghana’s previous presidential election was plagued with technical problems, accusations of fraud and vote-fixing and in some cases biometric voting machines breaking down.

Following the election, there was a massive trial in the country regarding election results and a close examination of the machines used to tally votes and verify voter identities. During this trial, it was revealed that there were close to 80,000 voters who voted without the use of their fingerprints, as the machines were unable to capture their prints.

Though glitches were present and the conditions were nowhere near ideal in Ghana’s previous election, by having registered and verified approximately 13 million people for an election within 48 hours, the country broke the world record previously held by India for 3.5 million people.

Article Topics

election  |  fingerprint  |  Ghana  |  government