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The 2024 presidential results will be made public at Regional Collation Centers prior to the national announcement at the Electoral Commission’s (EC) headquarters, the EC stated.
The action would contribute to increased transparency, said Dr. Eric Bossman Asare, Deputy Chairperson of the EC responsible for Corporate Services.
All political parties have accepted this new arrangement, he said. Their agents will thus be there to take part in the process at the polling stations and collation centers.
“For every constituency, there will be someone assisting with the collation process, and the same applies at the regional level. Under CI 127, regional collation is part of the structure for presidential elections.”
“After results are compiled at polling stations, they will be sent to constituency collation centres, and from there, forwarded to the regional collation centres. At each regional centre, we will announce the presidential results,” he said on Thursday, October 17, 2024.
Dr. Bossman Asare was addressing at the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) October 17 launch of the Election Day Observation and Post-Election Action Plan.
Voters may monitor the outcomes by area with this move. The EC is optimistic about holding another inclusive, transparent, and successful election.
4,000 polling station observers will be sent out nationwide by CODEO for the 2024 elections. Another method of evaluating the legitimacy and transparency of elections is election observation, which is now used worldwide.
Diplomatic officials praised CODEO for its reliability in Ghana’s elections.
The creation of regional collation centers for presidential elections has drawn criticism from Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, the former chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC).
According to Dr. Afari-Gyan, this decision is backward and might be detrimental to the nation’s election procedures.
According to his analysis, the establishment of regional collation centers may enhance the likelihood of manipulating results, endangering the voting system’s integrity.
Dr. Afari-Gyan, who was the keynote speaker at the Constitution Day Lecture on Monday, January 8, asked the Electoral Commission to take immediate action to rectify these issues.
“I am sure that the Electoral Commission is aware that most of the election controversies in recent times have centred on the counting and collation of votes. For this reason, I consider the setting up of regional collation centres in our presidential election to be a retrogressive step. Because it increases the number of points at which results can be manipulated.”
“I understand that we borrowed the practice from Nigeria, surprisingly at a time when Nigeria was seeking ways to send results straight from the polling stations to one location.”
Source: Ghanatodayonline.com
