[ 2016-07-20 ]

Chair of the Electoral Commission, Mrs. Charlotte Osei

We’re ready for credible polls - EC Chair
The Electoral Commission (EC) has given the
strongest assurance yet that it is on course to
deliver a more inclusive and transparent process
in the collation and declaration of the November 7
presidential and parliamentary election results.

According to the election management body, there
is a lot of integrity, transparency and
inclusiveness in the entire electoral process and
so there is the need for total support from all
Ghanaians, especially stakeholders in the
elections, to make this year’s elections a
resounding success.

In an exclusive interview with the Daily Graphic
in Accra last Monday, the Chairman of the EC, Mrs
Charlotte Osei, called for the nation’s support
and citizens’ confidence in the entire electoral
process because “the commission is committed to
organising the best of elections, come
November”.

Mrs Osei spoke about what the EC was doing from
this period up to the November 7 elections and
also shared her brief impressions on the ongoing
voters register exhibition and the re-registration
of voters whose names had been deleted from the
register because they used NHIS cards to
register.

Key reforms

As part of key electoral reforms, the exhibition
exercise has been extended from the usual 10 to 14
days to 21 days for a good number of reasons.

Among other reasons, it will give longer time for
eligible voters to check and confirm for
themselves that their details are captured in the
revised register.

More importantly, the exhibition exercise is
utilising biometric verification devices (BVDs)
which will be used to verify every registered
voter who visits every centre.

Indeed, the extended duration will also ensure
that voters get to know their polling stations as
the EC has increased the number of polling
stations.

Another crucial element in the reforms introduced
by the EC is the fact that the number of polling
stations created have been expanded from 26,000 to
29,000 to make it easier for voters to get to
polling centres near them. The additional polling
stations would also reduce the pressure exerted on
the BVDs and election officials during the
election and make the voting process faster.

It will be recalled that in the 2012 polls, there
were a lot of challenges with the BVDs.

Advice

Apart from the BVDs being used to verify the
identity of registered voters, Mrs Osei pointed
out that it would also afford the EC and its
officials the opportunity to have a fair sense to
determine the number of people who might face
challenges having their identities verified by the
devices and for which reason they would require
manual verification.

“It is, therefore, highly imperative that
persons who are re-registering due to the deletion
of their names from the register because of the
use of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS)
card get to do their re-registration as early as
possible.

“Beyond all these, the process can be enhanced
if registered voters do not wait till the last
moment to rush to the centres to check their
details. The earlier they do so, the better, in
order to forestall any undesirable incidents that
may not augur well for the electoral process,”
she stated.

Mrs Osei, therefore, called for active
participation in the current voters register
exhibition, as well as the re-registration of all
those whose names had been deleted from the
register because they had registered with NHIS
card.

‘So far EC on course’

“So far, we are on course to deliver,” Mrs
Osei gave the assurance, and disclosed that by the
first week of September this year the commission
hoped to come out with the finalised register.

Source - Graphic.com.gh

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