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Politics of Tuesday, 8 April 2014

Source: GNA

Biometric system of voting is a necessary evil

Mr. Augustine Okrah, the Director of Training at the Electoral Commission, has described the biometric system of voting as a necessary evil which had come to improve, as well as enhance the voting and democratic process.

He said per the system, double casting of ballots by unscrupulous individuals was cancelled, adding, “once the machine says verified, one can in no way vote at a different polling station”.

Mr. Okrah said this in response to a question during an open forum at the Regional Consultative forum on the public election regulations at Takoradi.

The Forum was to solicit suggestions from the stakeholders, particularly the political parties, on how best the EC could respond to some problems and weaknesses of the 2012 elections that were directly attributed to the CI 75.

The outcome of the consultative forum would also help in a better organisation of this year’s district assembly elections to elect assembly and unit committee members to help in the local governance system.

The director of training said some of the mishaps during the 2012 elections could be attributed to the inability of operators of the biometric machine to operate well.

Mr. Steve Opoku-Mensah, the Western Regional Director of EC, said election was a shared responsibility and that parties must produce educated and reliable agents to man polling stations during elections.

Participants at the forum called for flexibility in the transfer of votes, inclusion of media and other party agents in the special voting, back-up machine and the abolishing of the cluster system of registration.