EC to use 2 BVRs at each polling station — Quaicoo

The Electoral Commission (EC) will provide two Biometric Verification Devices (BVD) at each polling station with one serving as back-up, come December 7, 2016.

This is to avoid the recurrence of delays and postponement of voting that characterised the 2012 polls due to defects experienced with some of the biometric voting machines on the voting day.

The Ashanti Regional Director of the EC, Mr Serebuor Quaicoo, announced this in Kumasi at a three-day training workshop on Data Journalism to Support Election 2016 coverage.

Organised by  Penplusbytes with support from the United States Embassy and the African Elections Projects, the workshop is for 15 selected journalists across the country.

In the 2012 elections, although it was in the Legislative Instrument that there would be no vote without biometric verification,  because of the large numbers, some of the machines broke down on election day, which culminated in some areas voting without BVRs.

This issue was very prominent in the 2016 Election Petition.

Terminologies

Mr Quaicoo expressed worry about the increasing rate at which media practitioners tended to confuse electoral terminologies, a situation that led to misinformation which created tension and consequently confusion and misunderstanding.

He cited instances where during the 2012 election, some journalists who reported from polling stations created the impression as though they were calling results from collation centres. Others also did not know the difference between a spoilt ballot and a rejected ballot.

He explained that a spoilt ballot was the one that did not find its way into the ballot box while the rejected ballot was the which found its way into the ballot box but had defects.

Online

Mr Quaicoo said the EC advertised for the recruitment of temporary staff online and that the first batch, which was the returning officers, had been completed, sworn in and their names and pictures  sent to the political parties.

Collation centres

He said unlike previous elections where election results were collated at enclosed areas, the upcoming one would be done at a place which would contain the members of the media, electoral officers and representatives of all political parties.

He said the centres would have projectors so that the collation of the results would be seen by all present.

Training

He said as a departure from previous years’ training for non-permanent staff of the EC that lasted a day or two, this year’s training would be very intensive and would be for a week.