EC appeals to voters to exercise their franchise in referendum
The Electoral Commission (EC) has appealed to voters to come out and exercise their franchise in the December 27 referendum on the creation of six new regions.
Mr Yussif Alhassan Ayoba, the EC Assistant Head of Communications, said voting would begin on Thursday, December 27, at 0700 hours and end at 1700 hours at all the 4,798 polling stations of the proposed regions – Ahafo, Bono East, Savannah, North East, Oti and Western North.
He said a total of 2,260,724 voters were expected to vote in the referendum.
Speaking to Ghana News Agency, Mr Ayoba said all was set for the December 27 referendum.
On security, Mr Ayoba said that adequate security measures had been put in place for the conduct of the referendum.
He noted that each polling station had been supplied with two biometric verification devices (BVDs) to be used in the referendum; stating that provisions had been made for BVDs back-ups at the regional and district offices of the EC.
He said provisions had also been made for voters who would be rejected by the BVDs but have valid ID cards to be manually verified before they could vote.
He noted that voters in the proposed six areas would be determining whether they support the creation of a particular proposed region or not.
He said those in favour of the creation of a region were to thumbprint “Yes” (yellow) whilst those against were to thumbprint “No” (Brown).
He said at the close of polls, ballots would be countered and the results declared at each polling station.
He said all certified polling station results would be submitted to the District Collaboration Centres, where the District Returning Officers would collate all polling stations result and submit the result to the Regional Returning Officer, after same had been announced at the District Collaboration Centre.
Mr Ayoba said the Regional Returning Officers of the six proposed areas would add up all results of the districts in a particular carved area and declare the results of the referendum at the regional referendum centre.
The Constitutional threshold requires that at least 50 per cent of the eligible voters must cast their votes in the referendum, and of the valid votes cast, 80 per cent must be in favour of the proposed creation of the new regions.
It would be recalled that President Akufo-Addo forwarded the recommendations of the Justice Brobbey Commission of Inquiry to the EC to hold a referendum to create six new regions.
Source: GNA