Prime News Ghana

Manual Verification now acceptable - IPAC

By Frank Yeboah
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The Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) has agreed that manual verification of voters should be introduced alongside the biometric one.

The committee, at its meeting on December 22, stated that people whose particulars appeared on the voters register but who may be rejected by the biometric verification devices could be verified manually.

Outstanding issues

A press release signed by the Acting Director of Public Affairs of the Electoral Commission (EC), Mr Christian Owusu Parry, said the meeting deliberated and concluded outstanding issues from the electoral reforms recommendations.

The meeting, the statement said, agreed on 29,000 polling stations to be used for the 2016 general election instead of the 30,000 previously agreed by IPAC due to budget constraints of the EC.  According to the press release, the IPAC also accepted a working definition for “over-voting” as follows; “Over voting would be deemed to have occurred where the number of ballots in the ballot box exceeds the number of verified voters.”

General Elections

Other issues discussed, the statement said, included the Electoral Commission’s calendar of activities for the 2016 general election, which were accepted at the meeting.

he statement said the Commission informed IPAC that the panel, led by Justice V.C.R.A.C Crabbe, engaged by the Commission to collate views on the voters register and to make recommendations to the Commission on the way forward, presented its report on December 21, 2015.

Crabbe panel

The statement explained that the Commission would study the report and make a decision on the voters register as soon as practicable.

The EC assured the nation that it would make the report of the Crabbe panel as well as the Commission’s final position on the register known to the public shortly.

Background

The issue of  ‘’no verification no vote’ featured prominently in the 2012 landmark Supreme Court election petition filed by the presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and two others after the general election.