Special voting takes off on a quiet note in Tamale

Tamale, Dec. 23, GNA - Special voting in the 2008 Presidential Runoff has taken off in the three designated polling centres in the Tamale Metropolis on a quiet note with voters trickling in to cast their ballot.

The Presidential Runoff, which has been necessitated by the inability of any of the candidates to secure more than 50 per cent of the votes cast in the December 7 polls, would be between the two front-runners; Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of New Patriotic Party (NPP) and Professor John Evans Atta Mills of National democratic Congress (NDC).

When the GNA visited the Jubilee Park Polling Station where personnel from the security services, including the Military, Police, Prisons and Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) officers were casting their vote, only 180 had voted as at 0900 hours. Mr John Kwame Duncan, the Presiding Officer at the station, expressed the hope that voting would pick up during midday as it had happened in previous elections.

He said the Electoral Commission (EC) had provided all the needed materials and voting was going on smoothly.

At the Dabokpa Technical/Vocational Institute Polling Station only 90 people including 20 women, had cast their ballot as at 0905 hours. At the Kamina Barracks Polling Station a few military personnel and officials of the EC had queued up to vote as at 0845 hours. In an interview with the GNA, Mr Sylvester Kanyi, Northern Regional Director of the EC, said 90 per cent of the election materials, including ballot papers and polling booths had already arrived in the Region for the December 28 Presidential Runoff.

He said the other items left to be delivered were voters' register and the indelible ink and gave the assurance that these would arrive in the Region by close of work on Wednesday.

Mr Kanyi said 106,600 of the ballot papers supplied to his outfit for the Runoff, which were found to be tainted, had been returned to Accra for replacement.

He said the tainted ballot papers were for Tolon, Kumbungu and Tamale Central constituencies and gave the breakdown as follows: Tamale Central 83, 000; Tolon 19,500 and Kumbungu 4,100.