The Electoral Commission has been cautioned against compromising the 2024 general elections with its proposal to move the closure of the polls from 5pm to 3pm.
Dr Kwame Asah-Asante, a Political Science lecturer at the University of Ghana who made the call, like many others, says Jean Mensa’s proposal to end the election at 3pm will potentially disenfranchise people.
He told Alfred Ocansey on Ghana Tonight Thursday, December 14, 2023, that the 2024 polls should rather be an improvement of the previous exercises rather than presenting something untoward.
“It is a difficult thing and I don’t know how they want to handle this. My advice to them is that if for nothing at all, they should be able to make sure that we have an election that is not compromised in any way. For instance, we don’t want to see any group of people who, because of this decision, are going to be disenfranchised, that will not bode well for the elections that we are going to have in 2024.
“We also want to have a situation where the problems that previously we had, this decision will not compound them, we expect nothing but an improvement over the past experience to usher us into a new election that is free from all the evils that rear their ugly heads in democracies where there are difficulties and where sometimes it creates problems.”
The Chairperson of the Commission, Jean Adukwei Mensa, while making the proposal to finish voting at 3pm, indicated that this would allow electoral officers to collate the votes in broad daylight to ensure transparency and orderliness.
At the inter-party dialogue and stock-taking conference organised by the National Peace Council in Accra Thursday, December 14, where made laid the proposal, she averred that the initiative stems from the experience in the 2020 elections where about 70 per cent of voting centres were empty by 1:00pm.
“In 2020, 70 percent of our polling centres had a voter threshold of 500 and below. This time we intend to ensure that all our polling station centers have a threshold of 500 voters and below. In the same vein, we will increase the number of our polling stations nationwide.
“We believe that this will go a long way to reduce the long queues that characterize our elections and allow for a smooth, seamless, hustle-free voting process. In 2020, it took voters not more than five minutes to cast their votes due to the introduction of this policy.
“Based on our 2020 experience and also feedback from several observer groups we propose to close the polls at 3:00pm.
“Our experience in 2020 reveals that by 1:00pm, 70 percent of our polling stations were empty of voters as most voters had cast their votes. This made it possible because the threshold of most polling centers was reduced to 500 voters per voting center.
“This was coupled with the robust verification devices that were deployed to the polling stations. We are convinced that by closing the polls at 3:00pm, we will be able to count and collate in broad daylight and this will promote the needed transparency and orderliness that we so desire,” she explained.
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