Editorial by Ghanaian Times: Vote in your numbers in tomorrow’s elections!!

Tomorrow is the day for Ghanaians to vote in district-level elec­tions (DLEs) to elect people to represent them in the various Metropolitan, Municipal, and District assemblies (MMDAs), collectively known as district assemblies.

They are also to elect Unit Committee members for the various electoral areas.

All things being equal, voting is expected to begin at 7 a.m. tomorrow and close officially at 5 p.m. but as usual, if there should be some voters in a queue, they will be allowed to cast their votes.

We, however, implore voters to go to the voting centres early enough so that the polls can end at 5 p.m., for the counting of votes to begin on schedule.

It is 10 hours from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. and so we have to imagine how it feels for the elec­tions officials to be stuck at one place for just the voting before the counting of votes.

Let's remember the axiom “Do unto others what you want others to do to you” and go to vote early enough to save the officials some of the trou­ble like stress.

After all, the Deputy Chair of the EC in charge of Corpo­rate Services, Dr. Eric Bossman Asare, says with the adequate preparations so far made, a vot­er would spend less than five minutes to cast his or her vote once they get to the table to go through the process.

Like the Presidential and Parliamentary elections held in the country, the DLEs are held every four years.

However, unlike the pres­idential and parliamentary elections, the DLEs are not patronised as expected.

So far the highest turnout is 59.3 percent recorded in 1988/89, whereas the highest for the Presidential and parlia­mentary elections achieved in 2004 was over 80 percent.

The Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Ms Jean Mensa, had earlier said her outfit was targeting at least 60 percent turnout in tomorrow’s elections.

However, Dr. Bossman-Asare says a 70-percent turnout is expected as compared to 50 percent on December 17, 2019.

We see this as the affirmation of the fact that the Commis­sion has done all it could for the target to be achieved.

We are particularly encouraged by the fact that voters who have misplaced their Voter’s Card would just have to give their full names to the EC officials who will identify them by their surnames on the voters’ register and they are set to cast their ballot after going through the Biometric Verifica­tion system.

We hope other voter challenges can thus easily be resolved.

Whatever the case is, we im­plore registered voters to turn out in their numbers to elect the candidates that appeal to them as the ones who can best serve them.

It is our conviction that probably the people have not seen their aspirations being met by the assemblies, which is why they do not take a keen interest in the DLEs.

Perhaps, the people must be educated more on the importance of the district assembly system and the need for them to idolise it and de­mand accountability from the assembly members and their respective MMDAs.

They should understand that the district assemblies were introduced to allow the people’s participation in gov­ernance at the local level and for the assemblies to guide the socio-economic development of their jurisdictions.