General News of Tuesday, 10 November 2020

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

EC creates 5,000 more polling stations for 2020 elections

Director of Electoral Services at the EC, Dr Serebour Quarcoe Director of Electoral Services at the EC, Dr Serebour Quarcoe

The Electoral Commission has announced the creation of 5,000 more polling stations for the 2020 elections.

The new additions have taken the number of polling stations to be used for the polls to 38,000.

This was disclosed by the Director of Electoral Service, Dr Serebour Quarcoe in an interview with Citi News.

He disclosed the purpose of the new polling stations is to reduce queuing and time-wasting at the various centres.

He explained in detail how the new polling stations will operate.

“We want to reduce the queuing at the polling stations so the Commission decided to put the threshold at 749 so any centre that is more than that is spilt. So, there are some centres that have been split into five. Some are four, three and two. The splitting has created about 5,000 plus centres. So, there are no new centres. The splitting is around the whole country but mostly in areas that are densely populated,” he indicated.

The EC has already said that it is almost ready to deliver a free and credible election on December 7, 2020.

The Chairperson of the Commission, Jean Mensa assured Parliament that her outfit is focused on delivering a successful election.

“Mr Speaker, I am pleased to inform you that the Electoral Commission is 95 per cent ready for the successful, credible, fair, orderly and peaceful conduct of the election on December 7, 2020”, she said.

Jean Mensa also dispelled the notion that she does not have respect for the House.

“It is important to emphasize that this is the first time I have been invited by the House in my capacity as the EC Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, I have on no occasion turned down an invitation from the Parliament of Ghana,” she said.