Mr Kofi Dzakpasu
The Head of the Communications Directorate of the Electoral Commission (EC), Eric Kofi Dzakpasu, has admonished political parties to encourage their agents at the various polling stations to be very vigilant when it comes to the validation of ballot papers.
This, he said, will ensure that election officers who are assigned to validate and issue ballot papers would indeed do their work since there have been instances whereby election officers intentionally or unintentionally do not validate ballot papers, making them ‘spoilt’ ballot papers.
Mr Dzakpasu gave the advice on Friday at a training workshop organised by the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) for selected journalists on the theme, ‘Staying Safe During Election Coverage’ in Accra.’
It’s absolutely important for party agents to be very particular about the validation of ballot papers before they are issued to voters to vote, otherwise those votes would be rendered ‘null and void’ and would not be counted, he said.
He cited an example in the Aowin-Suaman District of the Western Region where a district electoral officer for a particular polling station recorded a very high number of ‘spoilt’ ballots during the 2012 general election.
He indicated that per his investigations, he realized that the election officer in charge of the issuance of ballot papers was affiliated to a particular party who decided not to validate most of the ballots papers to render them ‘spoilt.’
He said political parties must as part of their campaign educate the electorate on the need to ensure that ballot papers given to them are validated with an EC stamp before going ahead to vote.
The head of communications said they must also be taught not to soil their ballot papers with ink and must thump-print properly.
He said political parties must cooperate with the EC to properly educate voters, especially first timers on how to properly vote to reduce ‘spoilt’ ballot papers.
Mr Dzakpasu also said that two Biometric Verification Devices would be deployed to each polling station and that if a voter after going through the biometric verification process is not captured by the biometric machines, he or she could be manually verified and allowed to vote.
A former executive director of the Media Foundation for West Africa, Prof Kwame Karikari, said journalists must report accurately, fairly and professionally in order not to put their lives in danger when covering the elections.
He said journalists, who would be covering this year’s elections, should be neutral and also ensure that figures they put out are properly authenticated.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr