We need E-Zwich voting in Ghana

Asare Otchere-Darko, Executive Director, Danquah Institute

The NPP is already busily working out how it can avoid, what I would call, the Volta Voter Virus. The NDC may also be trusted to be working out how they could avoid what they may see us the ‘Manhyia sham’ becoming the norm. The fact that Ashanti Region alone, supported somewhat feebly by the Eastern Region, could hold back the other 8 regions must be a serious cause of worry for the NDC.


What it means is that if the NPP sets out to do in the Ashanti Region alone what the NDC managed successfully to do in the Volta Region with the blessing of the Electoral Commission, then Election 2012 is a must-win for the NPP. What happened in about 9 constituencies of the Volta Region, where agents of one party were effectively barred during election as a result of orchestrated violence, makes it more poignant when one considers the closeness of the margin and the number of votes delivered to the NDC from the affected areas, over 360,000 votes. What Ghanaians should take note of is that this can be replicated in multiple numbers elsewhere across the country. In the searching words of Nana Akufo-Addo, “By stating that there was criminal conduct in some constituencies in the Volta Region and yet announcing the result, the Electoral Commission has given the unfortunate impression that it does not matter how votes are obtained as long as they are duly recorded.” One cannot help but agree with the defeated presidential candidate’s words of caution that “Our democracy will not be complete until the day when Ghanaians regardless of their party affiliation or region of origin can participate fully in our election as voters or polling agents everywhere.”


Election security must be ensured in every stage of the process. Experts have identified three objectives to be addressed:


• Physical security of premises and materials;


• Personal security of voters, candidates, party workers or officials, electoral officials, and the general community;


• Security of election information, computer systems and software, and communication systems. Powers to enforce election security measures in these regards would normally be legislatively defined.

Clearly, the 2008 elections showed that a lot more work needs to be done on all three fronts. Also, while decisions on and conduct of prosecutions of voter fraud would generally, and more appropriately, is the responsibility of civil law enforcement authorities, it has become the global norm that the electoral management body requires systems in place to fulfil two specific responsibilities:


• Detect and document all attempted cases of voter fraud, so that suspected perpetrators may be identified and subject to the appropriate processes under electoral or other legislation and regulations;


• Determine, if at all possible before the finalisation of counts and the announcement of election results, if the extent of any detected fraud regarding voting is sufficient to have a possible effect on the results of any election.


It may require the law courts in Ghana to tell the EC that it does not have to seek to close the latch after the horse has bolted with results. Of course, where voter fraud is suspected, proper investigations would generally be undertaken after the close of voting. The framework within which these investigations take place can only be determined by the legal provisions relating to challenges to election outcomes and investigation and prosecution of voter fraud. The methods by which the EC responds to any responsibilities given to it under the legal framework will be governed by its management framework for dispute and challenge resolution. There appears to be a significant gap in that framework which either case law or legislation can cure. This must be done before the next general elections.


Indeed, to the extent that alleged fraud cited by the two parties was if detected sufficient to have possibly affected who became President of the Republic, the EC, which felt it lacked jurisdiction to overturn results once declared, could have itself made application to the law court to seek to set aside the elections in the affected areas. This would have aided in projecting the image of the EC’s vigilance, professionalism, and integrity in the face of attempts to manipulate election outcomes.


While the NDC is determined not to relinquish the power it lost eight years ago, the NPP can also be trusted to revert to the pre-2001 determined mode, where it was not prepared to be cheated or out-gunned in the propaganda warfare. The NPP has, in last year’s general elections, set the standard of how not to use the coercive power of the state to suppress, oppress and repress your opponents. The world would be watching the NDC, too. What is left is the electoral system – how to ensure a better EC for a better Ghana. In the 2007 Jamaican election, the island country employed a technology, which we here in Ghana must begin to study. They employed the use of the Electoral Voter Identification and Ballot Issuing System (EVIBIS), which is a computerised method of verifying fingerprints, similar to those used here in E-Zwich or by immigration officials in the United States. With EVIBIS, registered electors are identified and verified at the polling station by using their fingerprints after which the system will issue authenticated ballots for voting. The elector will then proceed as before to mark the "X" with a pencil on the paper ballot issued or thumbprint (as it’s done in Ghana). The main objectives of EVIBIS are to prevent: (1) Impersonation of an elector (2) Multiple voting by persons (3) The use of unauthenticated ballots.

Though in 2007 EVIBIS were only dispatched to 100 voting stations in Jamaica, (because they are new and expensive) it did so much to add confidence to the electoral process in areas where the electoral machinery has been challenged in the past. The Jamaican elections were hotly contested between the Jamaica Labour Party


(JLP) led by Bruce Golding and the People’s National Party (PNP) headed by the incumbent, Portia Simpson-Miller, amongst sixty constituencies with an electorate of 1.3 million. There were 6,380 polling stations throughout the country with 803,000 voting which constitute 60.8% of the electorate. Ultimately, the JLP captured 33 seats and the PNP 27. The results were so close that recounting had to be done, amidst allegations of irregularities from defeated Prime Minister, Portia Simpson-Miller. Without sufficient guarantees of security at all stages of the election process, there can be no guarantee of election freedom, fairness, and integrity.


Thanks to Dr Paul Acquah, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and others at the Bank of Ghana, a technology that would have been considered too advanced for Ghana is now being used by market traders – the e-Zwich. E-zwich, a name for the National Switch, is an initiative by the Bank of Ghana in collaboration with other banks in Ghana to bring the payment systems in Ghana up to the best international standards. The e-zwich operates on a Biometric Search Station which checks the finger prints of each smart card account holder through all other finger prints held in the system to ensure the unique identity of each account holder. It allows the general public to benefit from a more convenient, safer and easier way to spend and receive money by using the smart card.


All that is required now is to transfer that technology, based on the Jamaican experience, to our electoral system and you have EC-Zwich!