EC to erect eleven electronic scoreboards

The Electoral Commission (EC) is to erect ten giant electronic scoreboards at convenient place in each regional capital for the public to view the results from the various constituencies.

A national scoreboard would be erected at the Independence Square in Accra to display the results received from the regions. Mr Albert K Arhin, EC Director of Elections in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Accra said the erection of the boards would be completed by the end of the month.

He said EC regional offices are linked to the 'Operation Room' at the Headquarters in Accra, by telephone, radio and fax machines to facilitate the transmission of results as soon as they are received from the constituencies. "As usual the political party officials will be allowed in the operation room to observe the transmission from the regions," he said All district capitals without communication links have also been provided with facilities for transmission to the regional capitals for onward transmission to Accra.

Mr Arhin said as soon as the District Electoral Officer receives the signed copies of the Declaration of Results Form from the Returning Officer, it is immediately communicated to the regional office either by telephone, radio, fax or drive directly to the office.

Mr Arhin said the Regional Officer would then relay it to the regional scoreboard and fax the signed copy of the Declaration of Results Form from the District Election Officer to the operation room in Accra.

He said delays in the release of results are often occasioned by the relative inaccessibility of certain electoral areas, particularly the 'overseas' and other inaccessible areas in the country.

He mentioned the Northern and Upper East regions, the Afram Plains areas of the Eastern, Ashanti and Brong Ahafo Regions and certain parts of the Volta and Western Regions. Mr Arhin said measures have been put in place to avoid any undue delay in the transmission of the results including the use of helicopters, canoes, tractors, motorcycles and bicycles to transport election materials and personnel as well as results to and from the overseas areas.

He said Presiding/Returning Officers have undergone intensive training to understand how to complete the declaration of results form particularly on ballot accounting. Party Agents have been informed that if they failed to sign the declaration of results form electoral officials would go ahead and declare the results, he said.

Mr Arhin said in 1996 some agents refused to sign the declaration of results form when they realised that their candidates had lost which contributed to some of the delays. He said the results of election can be verified at various stages all the way down to the individual polling station, therefore, the allegation of changing or altering 'doctoring' or 'cooking up' of election results is unfortunate.

Mr Arhin appealed to political parties, media personnel and the general public to study the process and disabuse their mind of pre-arranged results.