The Electoral Commission (EC) has announced its plan to increase the number of polling centers for the upcoming general elections.
The EC Chair Jean Mensa mentioned this at an inter-party dialogue and stock-taking conference organised by the National Peace Council in Accra on Thursday, December 14, 2023 classfmonline reports.
Jean Mensah said, “We will increase the number of our polling stations nationwide.”
She further said, “We believe that this will go a long way to reduce the long queues that characterise our elections and allow for a smooth, seamless, hustle-free voting process,” she added
The EC chair revealed that in 2020, the implementation of the same policy enabled voters to spend not more than five minutes casting their votes.
Additionally, she suggested closing the polls at 3 pm instead of the regular 5 pm on voting day to enable transparent vote tabulation before nightfall.
“Based on our 2020 experience and also feedback from several observer groups we propose to close the polls at 3:00 pm,” she stated
Jean Mensa mentioned that in 2020, 70 per cent of polling centres had a voter threshold of 500 and below, noting that, “This time, we intend to ensure that all our polling station centers have a threshold of 500 voters and below.”
She further said, “Our experience in 2020 reveals that by 1:00 pm, 70 per cent 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 centres was reduced to 500 voters per voting centre.”
“This was coupled with the robust verification devices that were deployed to the polling stations. We are convinced that by closing the polls at 3:00 pm, 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 added.
Source: ghanaweb.com
