A Deputy General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mustapha Gbande, has assured the Electoral Commission (EC) that the drones the party intends to deploy for its own monitoring of the upcoming general election will not be used to infringe on the privacy of voters.
The Electoral Commission has said the move will constitute an invasion of voters’ electoral privacy and a breach of security protocols.
But Mustapha Gbande says there is no cause for alarm as the party would strictly observe all the laid down electoral rules by flying the drones outside of the voting perimeter.
Speaking on JoyNews’ Election Brief on March 12, he said this was the party’s way of contributing its quota to ensuring a free and fair elections.
“My assurance to the Electoral Commission is that the drone strategy in the Greater Accra region will not include the voting and polling station perimeters, where nobody is supposed to walk or move within.
“When you go to a voting centre or a polling station, there is a certain perimeter that is cordoned that no one is supposed to move.
“The purposes of having that perimeter is for the safety of the voter and then the assurance of secrecy of the voting process. They can be rest assured that it will not affect the perimeter of voting,” he told host, Aisha Ibrahim.
Mr Gbande stressed that the preparation stems from the lessons the party picked during the 2020 elections.
In light of this, he said in the upcoming polls, the drones will help to detect any electoral misconduct.
“Beyond that, we can even monitor when people are using election materials. We were in this country in 2020 when they printed excess ballot papers. We knew that. So if we intend to monitor even the EC’s activity going into 2024 to ensure that nobody moves fake materials into any area for the purposes of rigging an election, we believe it is our strategy and it does not flout any law,” he added.
The Deputy General Secretary of the NDC added that the drone will only deployed in the Greater Accra region.
Source: myjoyonline.com / Connielove Mawutornyo Dzodzegbe
