Having multiple collation centres could lead to the manipulation of election results – Fmr EC Chair

A former Chairman of Ghana’s Electoral Commission, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, has suggested that having several collation centres could have detrimental consequences.

He stated that the proliferation of these facilities could have ramifications since the centres could become vulnerable to election tampering throughout the voting process.

As a result, he has asked the electoral commission to examine the installation of several collation centres as part of the election administration process.

He made the statements while speaking at a symposium marking the 60th anniversary of the University of Ghana’s political science department.

He also suggested that it would be prudent the integration of technology into the collation process instead of creating numerous layers of centers.

“Voter tabulation sounds like a simple and straightforward activity, however, examples from recent elections will indicate that collation centers are the most vulnerable points in manipulating election results. So it is not desirable to set up many collation points in the results management process.

“Each collation centre represents a point where results can be corrupted wilfully or through mistakes. Also, the more collation centers there are, the more difficult to track changes and results.”