Election 2016: EC approves manual verification

The Electoral Commission of Ghana has approved “manual verification of voters” for the 2016 elections.

The electoral regulatory body after an IPAC meeting on Tuesday, said the biometric verification will still run, but the manual proof will be done for “people whose particulars appear on the voters register but who may be rejected by the biometric verification devices.”

IPAC also took a number of decisions in a press statement issued to the media on Tuesday. Below is the full details:

DECISIONS TAKEN AT INTER-PARTY ADVISORY COMMITTEE (IPAC) MEETING OF 22ND DECEMBER, 2015
At the IPAC meeting held on Tuesday 22nd December, 2015 the following outstanding issues from the electoral reforms recommendations were concluded.

1. IPAC agreed on 29,000 polling stations to be used for the 2016 general elections instead of the 30,000 previously agreed at IPAC due to budget constraints of the EC.

2. It was also agreed that manual verification of voters would be introduced, alongside biometric verification, for people whose particulars appear on the voters register but who may be rejected by the biometric verification devices.

3. IPAC also accepted a working definition for “over-voting” as follows; “Over voting would be deemed to have occurred where the number of ballots in the ballot box exceed the number of verified voters.”

Other issues discussed included:

4. The Electoral Commission’s calendar of activities for the 2016 general elections was also distributed and accepted at the meeting.

The Commission informed IPAC that the panel, led by Justice V.C.R.A.C Crabbe that was engaged by the Commission to collate views on the voters register and to make recommendations to the Commission on the way forward, presented its report on 21st December, 2015.

The Commission will study the report and make a decision on the voters register as soon as practicable. It further assured the nation that it would make the report of the Crabbe panel as well as the Commission’s final position available to the public shortly.

–SIGNED–
CHRISTIAN OWUSU-PARRY
ACTING DIRECTOR, PUBLIC AFFAIRS
for: CHAIRPERSON