EC increases number of polling stations
The Electoral Commission (EC) on Thursday announced that the number of Polling Stations for Election 2012 have been increased from 23,000 to 26,000.
Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, the EC Chairman, said this at a media dialogue organized by the Editors’ Forum, Ghana (EFG) on the topic: “On Election 2012: the EC’s preparations and related matters”.
He said after the compilation of the Biometric Voter Register, the EC realized that some polling stations were oversubscribed and therefore, had to be divided into two.
On the issue of the Voters’ Register, the EC Chairman said: “The Voters Register is a very critical element in the electoral process and it must be prepared very well. That is why it took a long time in it compilation.”
“We put the register there for public viewing because we are a human institution and we are not perfect but during the process of the exhibition, 200 polling stations recorded zero registration which was due to human errors”.
He explained that these were largely due to wrong coding but all these had being resolved.
The EC Chairman said there were instances where there were mix-ups in which male names were given female pictures and vice versa but all had been taken care of.
He said the printing of the main Voters Register was on going and that copies would be made available to political parties on Monday.
Dr Afari Gyan said there would be two registers at each Polling Station with the names arranged in alphabetical order in the first one, while those in the second one would be arranged in numerical order.
He said a voter would have to first go to the alphabetical register and there he will be told the page number on which his details would found in the numeric register. The numeric register had images of the registered voter.
Dr Afari-Gyan said the printing of ballot papers was on going and that those of presidential candidates had been completed since the EC does not foresee any increase in the number of candidates except by a court order.
He said under the biometric system of voting, the law allows proxy voting by special categories of registered voters such as Ghanaians on diplomatic missions.
Source: GNA