CODEO deploys 8,000 observers

 
By Pascal Kafu Abotsi
([email protected])..
The Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) says it has deployed 8,000 of its members, including 1,500 Parallel Vote Tabulation Observers, in the country’s 275 constituencies, and as well as the National Results Collation Centre, to observe and report on today’s election results, collation, tabulation, and declaration.

7,000 observers would be deployed as Rapid Response Observers (RROs) to a representative sample of polling stations throughout the country, while the remaining 1,000 of its Regional Coordinators, Constituency Supervisors and General Assembly Members would perform their roles as Roaming Observers (ROs) in all the 10 regions.

At a press conference in Accra yesterday, the Co-chair of the CODEO Board, Professor Miranda Greenstreet, announced that the essence of monitoring the elections, which her outfit had been engaged in since 2008, was to complement the efforts of the Electoral Commission (EC) and all stakeholders in ensuring a free, fair and peaceful election.

According to her, all trained CODEO observers were recruited from member organisations, and that precautions were taken to ensure that recruited members were strictly non-partisan and professional.

Touching on the preparations of the election day field observation, including the deployment of RROs and Roaming Observers (ROs), Professor Greenstreet stated that they commenced with a national training-of-trainers workshop for its 30 Regional Coordinators (RCs) in September.

This, she added, was followed by the training of 550 Constituency Supervisors (CS) in October, and was concluded with the training of its 7,000 stationery RROs in November.

“At each level of the training, CODEO observers were taken through the legal framework for elections, code of conduct for observers, what to observe at the polling stations, and personal security, among others,” she said.

With its data collection method, Professor Greenstreet stressed that the Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) system CODEO employed during the 2008 and 2012 elections would remain unchanged.

“The PVT is an advanced observation methodology that builds on the conventional election observation method. It involves deploying trained and accredited non-partisan and independent observers to a nationally representative sample of polling stations,” she explained.

The strategy, she believed, would not only enable CODEO to independently verify the accuracy of the tabulation process, but also boost citizens and voters' confidence in the electoral process and outcomes, and assure them that their votes would be counted and properly tabulated.