Ghana: Electoral Commission releases calendar of events on 2016 polls

Accra - The Electoral Commission (EC) has rolled out series of activities for the conduct of the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections including the revision and exhibition of the voters' roll. The EC 2016 Activity calendar indicates that the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) would meet nine times before the Election Day - tentatively on the first Monday of November; to deliberate, share ideas and advise the commission on electoral matters. Mr Samuel Tettey, EC's Director of Elections, said this at a round table organized by the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development and the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers. The discussion centered on the 2016 Uganda Elections with emphasis on lessons for Ghana to draw on, observers' assessment of the Eastern African country's Elections Management Body (EMB) and observer group findings about the elections.

Mr Tettey said the activity calendar was to guide the Commission to ensure greater transparency towards the smooth conduct of the 2016 polls, adding that copies of the events calendar have been given to all political parties. He said the EC was considering the possibility of transmitting election results electronically and looking for a better way to improve upon the system to raise public trust and confidence in the country's electoral system.

 'The commission is working with all political parties to clean the voters' register,' Mr Tettey said. Major activities on the calendar includes pilot bio-metric voter registration; training of grass root registration officials, appointment and briefing of district registration review committees, national post registration review meeting and exhibition of the voters register, and printing of provisional voters registers.

The rest are: recruitment of exhibition officials, building capacity of the media on electoral reporting, submission of the list of proposed exhibition officers to interested persons or parties at the District level, distribution of provisional voters register, and submission of copies of provisional voters register to political parties in a form determined by the EC.

Publication of list of Polling Stations, receipt of application for election observers, authentication of register, issuance of accreditation letters to observers, deadline for transfer of votes and proxies, building capacity of election educators, and posting of notices of nomination at all constituency centers in every constituency.

The rest are: processing of nominations for the printing of notices of poll and ballots, printing and distribution of notices of poll to regions, printing and distribution of ballot papers, workshop on election security, application for early voting and printing of register for early voting, dialogue with presidential and vice presidential candidates and national executives of political parties, submission of final register to political parties, training of party executives at national and regional levels, training of candidates agents, and dialogue with parliamentary candidates. Others are: declaration of Presidential Results by the Chairman - Returning officer for the Presidential Election. GNA