Commission urges confidence in polls

Page 32: Daily Graphic, December 7, 2008.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Electoral Commission has since the beginning of the year put in place measures to ensure confidence in the electoral system.
Apart from the delay in the re-opening of the voters register and its attendant effect on the voter registration exhibition exercise, as well as the filing of the nominations, the EC had undertaken a number of measures to instil confidence in today’s polls.
The limited voter registration exercise also resulted in multiple-registration and illegal minor registration.
An aspiring Member of Parliament in the Ashanti Region was jailed for double registration, while another in the Western Region is currently facing trial.
Some parents supported the EC during the exhibition exercise to delete the names of their minor children from the list of the electoral roll.
The EC took delivery of essential materials for the elections, namely indelible ink, endorsing ink, validation stamps, stamp pads, thumbprint pads, ballot boxes and materials for the printing of ballot papers 40 clear days before the elections.
It should be noted that from the use of opaque ballot boxes in 1992, the EC had improved the system with the use of transparent boxes, from limited use of photo identity cards to cover all eligible voters.
The EC also printed the ballot papers locally under tight security and also secured the canoes and rechargeable lamps for areas which did not have electricity and also for use in areas where there might be power outages.
The Chairman of the EC, Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, had, on numerous occasions prior to today’s polls, assured the electorate and political parties to discount the idea of rigging because there were adequate safeguards to protect the integrity of the polls.
According to him, the country’s electoral system had built-in mechanisms to make election results verifiable as a result of which “it will be very difficult for anybody to cheat in the elections”.
The EC has also given the assurance that the results of today’s polls will be declared before the 72-hour mandatory period elapses.
That, it said, was to ensure that the anxiety that usually built up after the mandatory 72 hours, which had been blamed for some of the tension and rumours of rigging, would not be the case this year.
The EC had also put in measures to reduce the number of rejected ballot papers.
Rejected ballots accounted for 1.53 per cent or 111,108 of the 7,256,872 votes cast in 1996; 1.58 per cent or 104,214 of the 6,605,084 votes cast in 2000 and 2.13 per cent or 188,123 votes of the 8,813,908 cast in 2004.
One of the measures involves the lines differentiating the pictures and party symbols of the candidates on the ballot papers have been made bolder.
The EC also warned that it would be unlawful for any party agent or any other person to attempt to prevent anyone from voting today.
Also, party agents are not to effect the arrest of anyone on alleged electoral offences.
It said persons who had misplaced their voter ID could also vote provided their names could be found in the voters register.
The EC had also threatened to deal with any EC staff member who would be found to be involved in any act that could undermine the electoral process.
Today’s elections have a large number of observer missions from across the world.
The Carter Centre in the United States of America, the European Union, the Economic Community of West African States and the Commonwealth Secretariat have all sent strong election observer missions to monitor today’s polls.