The Electoral Commission (EC) has taken an initiative to enhance transparency in the upcoming 2024 General Election.
As per the Commission’s plan, results from various polling stations will be displayed on a dedicated online portal that will include scanned signed pink sheets.
The public can access this information in real-time, which is a positive development towards ensuring a transparent electoral process.
Mrs Jean Mensa, Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, shared this information during a stakeholder meeting organised by the National Peace Council.
This move towards transparency will help build trust in our democratic institutions and ensure that the election results are credible and trustworthy.
Mrs Mensa said the decision to publish the results of polling stations would promote inclusion and involve citizens throughout the election process.
“We intend to display the results from the polling station on a dedicated portal.
This proposal aligns with the EU Observer Mission recommendation. For the first time in our history, we posted results from the 16 Regions and 275 Constituencies in real-time.
“This time around, we plan to display the scanned signed pink sheets on a dedicated portal. We are confident that this arrangement will promote transparency and engender further trust and confidence in our electoral processes,” she said.
The EC also proposed to close polls at 15:00 hours to ensure that counting was done in broad daylight to enhance transparency.
The Commission said the experience from the 2020 Election indicated that by 13:00 hours, about 70 per cent of polling centres were empty of voters due to the creation of multiple polling centres that sped the process.
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Mrs Mensa said the EC intended to create many polling centres and ensure that each polling centre had not more than 500 voters to limit voting time.
She said in the last election, voters spent not more than five minutes in casting their voting because of the creation of more voting centres.
“We are convinced that closing the polls at 3pm will enable counting and collating to take place in broad daylight and promote the needed transparency and orderliness we so desire.
“We trust that our Parliament will support this drive to ensure greater transparency and orderliness in our electoral process,” Mrs Mensa said.
The Commission also proposed an all-year-round exhibition exercise, which would enable citizens check their registration details on their smartphones and other mobile devices.
Mrs Mensa expressed hope Parliament would pass the new Constitutional Instrument that recommended a continuous voters registration exercise and sought to make the Ghana Card the sole identification document to establish an applicant’s citizenship.
She said the proposal would help to phase out the guarantor system, which had been fraught with challenges and undermined the credibility of the voters register.
Reverend Dr Ernest Adu-Gyamfi, Chairman, National Peace Council, said the Council would continuously dialogue with all stakeholders to ensure peaceful election in 2024.
He appealed to the National Democratic Congress to return to the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) to foster consensus building.
“If we all commit to peace Ghana will have one of the best elections in Africa,” he said.
