'Adopt E-Voting For 2012 Election'
Speakers at a conference in Accra have called for the use of electronic voting in the 2012 elections, contrary to the Electoral Commission’s (EC) claim that Ghana is not ready to use it.
Last Friday, the Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC), Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, discounted any immediate plans to shift the country’s electoral system from manual to electronic voting, as many Ghanaians were not conversant with the computer.
But the Chairman of the Governing Board of the Danquah Institute (DI), Professor Addo Fenning, the Executive Director of the Justice and Human Rights Institute, Professor Ken Agyeman Attafuah, the Minority Leader, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, and the Editor of the Daily Dispatch newspaper, Mr Ben Ephson, argued that e-voting did not require Ghanaians to be literate in computer, since it involved only thumb printing a computer keyboard.
They said e-voting would eliminate multiple voting, impersonation and violence during elections.
However, the Minister of Communication, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, was of the view that the EC did not have the necessary Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure and human capacity to conduct e-voting in the 2012 election.
He noted that the EC did not have acceptable regional offices while only about 40 per cent of its district offices were functioning.
Mr Iddrisu, therefore, called for a review of the existing electoral laws and the equipping of the EC with ICT infrastructure and skills to be able to conduct e-voting in the 2016 election.
The two-day national conference on Biometric Voter Registration and E-Voting in Ghana, organised by the DI, is being attended by Members of Parliament (MPs), representatives of political parties and officers from the National Identification Authority (NIA) and the Electoral Commission (EC).
Professor Fenning said some of the difficulties that nearly marred the 2008 elections were allegations of a bloated voter register, non-eligible people voting, violence, intimidation, multiple voting, voter impersonation, ballot box stuffing, ballot box theft and spoilt ballots.
He said in spite of the fact that a biometric voter register had been accepted by all as the way forward, “our checks on the preparations being made towards its implementation for the 2012 elections have given us enough cause to worry”.
Professor Fenning said in Ghana’s volatile and charged partisan political environment, it was important to have a trusted electoral process, where elections would be regarded as fair, even by the losing side.
Professor Attafuah noted that political violence and contestations with the age and the nationality of voters continued to mar elections in the country.
Therefore, he said, biometric registration and e-voting, although not full-proof, would “signal hope and optimism in solving election problems”.
Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu stressed that e-voting was a simple exercise of voting on the computer which would not demand voters to be conversant with the computer before voting.
He said it was significant for the law establishing the NIA to be reviewed to enable it to collaborate with the EC on how to come up with a more credible voters register.
Mr Ephson said India, which had about 700,000 polling stations, was able to conduct e-voting, and wondered why Ghana with about 22,000 polling stations could not do so.