General News of Wednesday, 25 November 2020

Source: GNA

EC to provide tactile ballots for impaired voters in Agona East

Visually impaired people will have a special ballot paper Visually impaired people will have a special ballot paper

The Agona East Directorate of the Electoral Commission (EC) has organized a training workshop for over 50 visually impaired persons with the assurance that tactile ballots will be provided in all 129 polling stations in the Constituency to enable them to participate in elections on December 7.

Mrs Patience Shebrah, Agona East Director of EC, said it was the EC’s duty to ensure that all visually impaired voters cast their ballots without any hindrance.

She expressed the hope that executives of Ghana Blind Union in the Agona East would do their best to educate their counterparts on proper voting processes, using the tactile.

Mr Banford Tetteh Ababio, Secretary of the Ghana Blind Union (GBU) in Agona East and a facilitator expressed joy about the training, saying it will make eligible visually impaired voters cast their ballots for the party of their choice.

He said the practice where they had to use guides to vote sometimes resulted in their decision being subverted as the guides may make wrong choices for them.

Mr Ababio assured that the participants would embark on house to house sensitization to educate members who did not have the opportunity to participate in the training to enable them to become abreast of the correct procedure for voting.

Mr Kobina Okuntu, President of GBU in Agona East, expressed appreciation to the EC for the training of the members and pledged that they will vote peacefully on December 7.

He called on the EC to regularly organize training workshops for them and not wait till general elections before such training was done to update their knowledge on proper voting.