EC outlines modalities for local government elections

The Electoral Commission (EC) on Tuesday outlined modalities for voting at the local government elections scheduled for 6 August. The Commission said a voter is expected to vote for one candidate for the electoral area and ten candidates at the unit committee level.

Mr Kwame Damoah-Agyeman, EC Chief Director of Elections, told the Ghana News Agency in an interview in Accra that all laws governing elections in the country would be applied.

He said the voting procedures remained the same. "The voting pattern is transparent and at each point of the voting process there is an identifiable glaring system, which would make it impossible for any one to cheat." He explained that the result of polling stations within the electoral area would be collated at a designated centre, where the Deputy Returning Officer for the area would declare the winner.

Mr Damoah-Agyeman said for the Unit level, the Returning Officers would use a specially designed Tallying Form to collate the results and declare the first ten with the highest votes cast in their favour as winners. The collation would be done in the presence of the candidate's Agents. He said; "the result of any polling station where the number of votes cast would exceed the number of registered voters would be cancelled."

Mr Damoah-Agyeman urged Ghanaians to avoid making allegations about imagined electoral fraud and suspicions and condemned those who falsely believe the elections would be rigged, saying, people make pronouncements that tended to erode the confidence in an elaborate electoral system.

"Most of the time we talk about rights without talking about our duties and responsibilities and then fail to understand and appreciate how the electoral system operates," the Chief Director said. Mr Damoah-Agyeman appealed to the media to abide by the Ghana Journalists Association guidelines on elections to ensure that the press would not be accused of fomenting trouble.

He said it was only certified results that should be announced by the press and urged practitioners to crosscheck any information, allegations and complaints or pieces of information that they would stumble upon to make them credible.

A total of 14,141 candidates had filed nominations to contest for the 4,830 electoral seats, while 15,386 are contesting for unit committee membership. There are 981 female candidates for the assemblies.

In another development, the Electoral Commission told the Ghana News Agency in Accra, that a total of 323 candidates stand unopposed in their respective electoral areas, and gave the regional distribution as follows: Western 18, Central 12, Greater Accra 10, Volta 76, Eastern 33, Ashanti 21, Brong Ahafo 38, Northern and Upper West 44 each and Upper East 27.

Statistics on candidates indicated that out of 1,471, who filed to contest for the 452 electoral areas in the Western region only 77 were female, Central had only 117 female out 1,440 candidates for 498 electoral areas and the Greater Accra had 64 females out 842 candidates for the 236 electoral areas.

Others are: Volta, 130 female contestants out of 1,337 candidates for the 512 electoral areas, Eastern had 145 females out of the 2,067 candidates for the 692 electoral areas, Ashanti recorded 214 females out of 2,737 candidates for the 819 electoral areas and the Brong Ahafo had 100 females out of 1,649 candidates for the 582 electoral areas.

The rest are Northern 57 females out of 1,319 candidates for the 546 electoral areas, Upper East 42 females out of 725 candidates for the 270 electoral areas while the Upper West recorded 35 female candidates out 437 contestants for the 198 electoral areas.