Regional News of Monday, 31 December 2012

Source: GNA

NCCE director expresses concern about spoilt ballot papers

Mr Sekyi Sam, Agona East District Director of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), has expressed concern about the large number of spoilt ballot papers during the 2012 Presidential and Parliamentary elections.

He said the NCCE as a civic education organization, did all it could to educate the electorate on proper voting procedure throughout the country and yet over 250,000 votes were rejected.

Mr Sam expressed the concern when he addressed a congregation of Agona Nsaba Presbyterian Church at Nsaba at the weekend.

He blamed political parties and their agents for not doing much to educate their supporters on the correct voting procedure, resulting in a large number of ballot papers being spoilt.

The NCCE Director expressed the hope that there would be an improvement in the next election in 2016.

He said investigations conducted by the Directorate revealed that people who had double affiliations with political parties spoiled their ballot papers.

Mr Sam appealed to the political parties not to influence the electorate with money and compel them to swear an oath to vote for them.

The NCCE Director cautioned supporters of political parties not to resort to violence after the elections.

He said with the elections over, there was the need to forge ahead to ensure unity and national development.