“The rule of law means the law rules—not the convenience of a committee or the mirage of an incident-free election achieved by sacrificing proxy voting.”
When the Presidential Election Committee (PEC) boldly announced a blanket ban on proxy voting, it did more than issue a directive; it placed itself in direct conflict with the spirit and letter of the law it claims to uphold. This debate is not about emotions, nor is it about Diaspora sentimentality. At its core, it is about law, constitutional rights, and the protection of vulnerable citizens whose circumstances the framers of our electoral regulations intentionally sought to accommodate.
Proxy voting in Ghana is not a political toy invented for the Diaspora. It is a legal instrument created under CI 127, Regulation 25, to safeguard the rights of citizens who, through no fault of their own, cannot be physically present on voting day. Among these citizens are the sick, persons with disabilities, and others who fall within recognised categories of vulnerability. When an ad hoc committee sets aside this framework through a sweeping pronouncement of “No Proxy,” it is not merely making an administrative choice; it is stepping into dangerous territory where convenience attempts to override the Constitution, statutory law, and fundamental democratic rights and justice.
A serious engagement with the law reveals the purpose and scope of proxy voting. CI 127 Regulation 25 provides for proxy voting not as a favour, but as a legally entrenched safeguard for citizens who are incapacitated, ill, living with disabilities, or absent from their designated polling station due to justifiable circumstances. It is a citizens’ protection mechanism. Parliament and the Electoral Commission, in crafting CI 127, did not imagine democracy only for the healthy, the mobile, or the physically present. They anticipated vulnerability and enshrined protections to ensure complete and equitable participation. To declare “No Proxy” without nuance is legally questionable, morally insensitive, and politically reckless toward some of Ghana’s most vulnerable voters.
The 1992 Constitution guarantees every Ghanaian aged 18 and of sound mind the right to vote. That right is not conditional upon physical strength, mobility, or proximity to a polling station. The framers of the Constitution did not design democracy exclusively for the strong; they designed it for every citizen. Proxy voting was intentionally created as a bridge between constitutional ideals and practical realities: some citizens will be ill, some will be disabled, some will face circumstances beyond their control, but none of them will become lesser citizens. To shut down that bridge with a three-word declaration is to say, in effect, “Your right to vote exists in theory, but collapses in practice if you are weak, sick, disabled, or physically constrained.” A democracy that punishes vulnerability is a democracy that has lost its way.
The reality of persons with disabilities underlines this point with even greater clarity. Ghana’s disability laws and broader policy frameworks affirm that persons with disabilities are entitled to equal participation and accommodations in public life, including elections. The logic is straightforward: society has created barriers, physical, social, and logistical, and the law must help mitigate them. Where a barrier cannot be removed, an accommodation must be provided. Proxy voting, viewed through this lens, is not a luxury; it is an accommodation. Denying it unconditionally is akin to declaring, “We know some of you cannot climb the stairs into the polling station, but instead of providing a ramp, we will close the door entirely.” That is not neutrality and just; it is suppression and discrimination by omission.
The Presidential Election Committee is not Parliament, nor is it the Electoral Commission. It is an administrative body tasked with applying rules, not rewriting them by pronouncement. If CI 127 Regulation 25 authorises proxy voting, and if the Constitution and disability frameworks protect the vulnerable, no committee has the lawful authority to nullify that framework so casually. Committees may design administrative safeguards, tighten procedures, clarify qualifying criteria, or demand stringent documentation. What they cannot legitimately do is abolish, by fiat, what the law deliberately created. Doing so is a slide from administration into arbitrary rule, the very opposite of constitutional democracy.
It is undeniable that some arguments against proxy voting arise from perceived fear: fear of abuse, fear of manipulation, and fear that proxies could serve as vehicles for rigging. While these unproven fears should not be dismissed, they cannot justify erasing lawful safeguards designed to protect vulnerable citizens. The correct democratic response to potential abuse is regulation, not abolition. If a bridge is weak, you reinforce it, you do not detonate it and tell those on the other side to swim. By abolishing proxy voting, the committee effectively prioritises its fear of hypothetical fraud over the rights of the sick, the disabled, the bedridden, and the physically constrained. This is a moral failure as much as it is a legal flaw.
The Diaspora has become a lightning rod in this debate, often unfairly framed as the primary beneficiary of proxy voting. This is intellectually shallow. Proxy voting was not created for the Diaspora; it was made for all citizens with legitimate constraints as defined under law. The question is not whether Diaspora delegates may benefit from proxy voting. The real question is whether citizens who fall within legally protected categories, wherever they are, should be denied lawful accommodation because of suspicions directed at others. Should the sick suffer because someone fears the Diaspora? Should the disabled be silenced because a committee dreads hypothetical manipulation? If the PEC wishes to restrict Diaspora-related proxy participation, it may propose rules, ground them properly, and protect those covered under CI 127. What it must not do is hide a sweeping erasure of vulnerable people’s rights behind the blanket phrase “No Proxy.”
This moment calls for a return to principle. The PEC must be reminded that its role is to administer, not amend; its duty is to protect the integrity of the process, not sacrifice the vulnerable at the altar of convenience; its legitimacy rests not on the volume of declarations but on their fidelity to the Constitution, CI 127, and Ghana’s disability and human-rights frameworks. A principled position would affirm the legality of proxy voting under Regulation 25, tightly define qualifying circumstances, create a robust and verifiable process to prevent abuse, and explicitly safeguard the rights of persons with disabilities, the sick, and those in documentable constraints. Anything less is not reform; it is regression.
History will not remember the slogans of committees. It will remember whether we defended law, fairness, and the vulnerable. This is not the moment to let fear override rights. It is not the moment to allow an ad hoc body to dilute what Parliament, the Electoral Commission, and the Constitution have protected. Proxy voting, properly regulated, is not a threat to democracy; it is an expression of it. The greater danger lies in the creeping notion that a committee can overrule law, silence the vulnerable, and call it “integrity.”
We can do better than that. We must do better than that. And suppose we genuinely believe in democracy, the rule of law, and equal citizenship. In that case, the path forward is unmistakably clear: uphold the law, protect the vulnerable, and regulate proxy voting; do not abolish it.
The National Executive Committee and the National Council must now call the Presidential Elections Committee to order.
