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LET MY VOTE
COUNT COMMENDS EC
Press Release
August 29, 2016
The decision by the Electoral Commission to
engage professionals, notably accountants and
lawyers, as collation officers and returning
officers at the constituency level for the
December 7 general elections is commendable.
The Let My Vote Count Alliance (LMVCA) will
not only praise the EC for doing this but
encourage the Commission to establish a system
of greater transparency for the recruitment of
people of basic integrity to be election
officers at all 29,000 polling stations
nationwide.
The principles which inform the engagement
of professionals for collation purposes are
equally vital to be applied at the polling
station level, where voters are verified, ballot
papers issued, votes are counted and recorded.
Accuracy, honesty, impartiality, integrity
have been found to be wanting where it matters
most, at the polling station.
Whiles it is impossible to find enough
lawyers and accountants to fill the over 150,000
election officer slots vacant at the 29,000
centres, the EC should take serious lessons from
the debacle of 2012 and make the recruitment
process more stringent.
We know there are several professionals,
including teachers, health workers, civil
servants and bank workers, who will be happy to
sacrifice one day of the next four years for
their country. We will therefore encourage the
EC to make extra effort to make it easier for
professionals to sign up for work as EC
officials at the polling stations.
This will significantly improve the manner
in which elections are conducted, results
recorded and collated, thereby, increasing the
degree of accuracy to enhance the credibility of
the entire electoral process.
LMVCA held a press conference on 14th July,
2016 during which we stated emphatically that
the involvement of professionals with integrity
in the electoral process would reduce errors
during the counting, recording and collation of
election results, and considerably enhance the
credibility of elections. We are urging the EC
to make it a policy to extend the involvement of
professionals to the polling station.
The Election Petition, which ensued after
the 2012 elections unveiled the multitude of
errors that characterized the 2012 elections.
Today, in commemoration of the third anniversary
of the Supreme Court Ruling on the Election
Petition, LMVCA calls on all professionals,
particularly accountants and lawyers, etc. to
take up the role and challenge to get involved
in the forthcoming elections either as
constituency collation officers or polling
station presiding officers.
Having credible and peaceful elections are
crucial to the stability and development of our
country. It is therefore incumbent on all
patriotic citizens of integrity, with a high
understanding of numeracy and the electoral
process, to get involved to ensure credible
elections for the consolidation of democracy in
Ghana.
LMVCA urges all political parties to
support the decision of the EC to engage lawyers
and accountants in the collation of election
results. What they should rather focus on is the
recruitment criterion, which should frown on
partisanship.
We further challenge political
parties to recruit and train highly qualified
persons to act as political party agents to
police the ballot.
Elections are so crucial that, the entire
process must be entrusted into the hands of
persons who are highly qualified and who have a
high level of understanding of the electoral
process.
To Ghanaian professionals we say let
us all get involved to support the EC get it
right for Ghana in 2016.
Thank you.
David Asante - Convenor
0268220220
Ibrahim Adjei - Spokesperson
0243338544
John H. Acquaah - Dir. Operations
0268110110
Let my vote count, Don't destroy our
democracy !!!
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