EC abandons e-transmission of results in 2016 elections

The proposed electronic transmission of the 2016 election results from all the 275 constituencies by the Electoral Commission has been cancelled, 3News can authoritatively report.

The Commission took the decision after the companies that bided for the e-transmission contract failed to meet the required criteria, sources within the Commission told 3FM’s Kwakye Afreh-Nuamah Thursday.

“We are going to stick by our old way of transmission,” the sources told our correspondent on the sidelines of Thursday’s Inter Party Advisory Committee in Accra.

However, the Commission will in the absence of the e-transmission, have resolved to electronically project the results of the various constituencies at the 275 collation centres nationwide.

“We will add another aspect, which is projecting the results at the constituency collation centre,” the sources told Afreh-Nuamah.

The Electronic Results Transmission System (ERTS) was part of a proposal which was taken by IPAC and collectively accepted by all the political parties for implementation by the Electoral Commission.

The issue however generated hue and cry among some stakeholders, including the New Patriotic Party, which was the brainchild of the proposal to transmit the election results electronically.

The EC explained that ERTS does not replace the manual collation process which requires agents of political parties to attest to the accuracy of results before declaration by presiding officers.

But a tender process to select a company to handle the ERTS process has however failed.

None of the six companies which bided of which it was reduced to two was successful.

According to the sources, the Commission does not have enough time to reopen another tender process considering the elections are in less than three months.