A large portion of electoral irregularities in developing countries stem from administrative
deficiencies, rather than deliberate fraud. This is particularly evident when it comes to voter
registration and identification: the quality of a voter list depends from the existence of effective
mechanisms to register and identify citizens and electors, which might not be easily at hand in many
developing countries. Democratization in these countries has been accompanied by intense polemics
about the quality of the voter rolls and the identification of electors, which have threatened democratic
consolidation. Biometrics technology has been recently heralded as a possible solution, but its
effective potential is disputable. In order to understand how problems with registering and identifying
voters have affected democratization, this paper reviews the contrasting experiences of Côte d’Ivoire
and Ghana. In Côte d’Ivoire, the problem of the reliability of the voter register has been entangled
since the ‘90s with the politicization of the citizenship question. As a consequence, compiling an
acceptable voter register has proven extremely difficult and cumbersome. In Ghana, an effective
electoral administration has been key to overcome the mistrust of the political parties about the
fairness of the voter process.