[ 2011-04-20 ]

No E-Voting in 2012 polls
The Electoral Commission (EC) has made it clear
that electronic voting (e-voting) will not be
applicable in the 2012 general election because
the time is not yet appropriate for the system.

It however indicated that it would most likely use
a biometric register for the conduct of Election
2012. The Deputy Chairman (Finance) of the EC, Mr.
David Adenze Kanga, made this known to the Daily
Graphic in Accra on Tuesday April 20, after a
meeting with the leadership of the four political
parties with representation in Parliament.

He said there was the need for the nation to
hasten slowly with respect to e-voting. “For
electronic voting, we are not going to be there in
2012.

Our own view is that we should encourage corporate
bodies and institutions to begin to use e-voting
for their own internal elections so that people
will get used to e-voting such that by the time
the commission is ready and we go national, people
would have appreciated the difficulties of
e-voting if there are any,” he submitted.

Mr. Kanga said that was very important because
when e-voting was used suddenly, there might be
some misunderstanding at the end of the elections
and some people might not accept the results.

The EC has shortlisted seven companies for the
provision of the technology required for the
biometric registration exercise. Mr. Kanga said
biometric registration would go on, so that by
next year, there would be a new biometric register
for the conduct of the 2012 general election.

The meeting was under the auspices of the
Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) and it
afforded the officials of the EC and the
leadership of the four political parties – the
National Democratic Congress (NDC), the New
Patriotic Party (NPP), the People’s National
Convention (PNC), and the Convention Peoples Party
(CPP) – the opportunity to discuss other
critical issues relating to the smooth conduct of
Election 2012.

One of those issues was the funding of the
elections. The EC has submitted a budget of 80
million Ghana cedis to the government for the
conduct of the elections.

Mr. Kanga said the EC and the political parties
would continue to remind the Ministry of Finance
and Economic Planning, so that the ministry would
in turn engage donors to raise the budget required
for the biometric registration and next year’s
general election. “The conduct of elections is
by the commission, but the success depends on all
the political parties,” he remarked.

Commenting on the outcome of the meeting, the
National Chairman of the NDC, Dr. Kwabena Adjei,
said elections were the fulcrum around which
democracy evolved and as such their integrity
needed to be protected.

For his part, the National Chairman of the NPP,
Mr. Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, said such meetings and
consensus building efforts were very necessary to
address issues. “We are very happy with the
agreements that we have reached on the biometric
register, which is critical to the enhancement of
our democracy,” he said.

The National Chairman of the PNC, Alhaji Ramadam
expressed hope that the meeting would go a long
way to create a conducive atmosphere for the 2012
general election.

The biometric register to replace the existing
voters register that was compiled in 2004 will
capture the particulars of voters in an electronic
version, unlike the current manual register. It is
believed that this will help address some of the
challenges in the electoral process, such as
double registration and impersonation.

Source - Daily Graphic

... go Back