EC did not record minors voting in UE(D/G, Tuesday, December 18, 2012)

The Electoral Commission in the Upper East Region has stated that it did not record any incidence of minors voting in the just ended presidential and parliamentary elections. In an interview in Bolgatanga, the Deputy Upper East Regional Director of the EC, Mr Azu Bosco Anyigire, said following the stern warning issued and the determination to hand over any minor that would turn up at the polling station to vote to the security agencies, the polling area became a no-go area for underage voters. It would be recalled that days before the polls took place, the EC in a press conference displayed photographs of some minors registered as voters and warned that any minor who made an attempt to queue and vote on voting day risked being arrested. According to Mr Anyigire, that warning perhaps scared minors from showing up to partake in the exercise. In a related development, the Daily Graphic observed that apart from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) that had polling agents in all the polling stations in the region, the other parties that contested in the elections were under represented at the various polling stations. The Political Parties Law requires that parties meet some basic requirements among which are be national in character, have offices opened in at least two-thirds of all districts in the country, have officers elected at the national, regional and constituency levels through which they can have branch, ward and polling station executives who can perform the rolls such as polling agents for their respective parties. In the Bawku Central Constituency, representatives of the NDC, CPP, PPP and PNC were present and endorsed collated result while that of the NPP failed to sign the constituency results summary sheet. At the Zebilla Constituency collation centre, apart from representatives of the NPP and the NDC, the other political parties were absent. Also present was the agent of the Mallam Isa Yusif who contested the parliamentary seat as an independent candidate. In the Tempane Constituency, it was only the NDC and NPP that were represented at the collation centre. In Navrongo, the NDC, NPP, PNC were represented at the collation centre. However, not even the PPP parliamentary candidate, Mr Avanakwa Crispin, had an agent to endorse the collated results. At the Pusiga Constituency collation centre, apart from the NDC, NPP and PPP, none of the other contesting political parties had agents to endorse the results declarations forms. At the Talensi Collation centre, only the NDC, NPP and PNC agents signed the declaration form while in the Nabdam Constituency, only agents of NDC and NPP were on hand to authenticate the results. At Garu, the NDC, NPP and the CPP had agents at the collation centres to endorse the final results declared after collation while in the Chiana-Paga Constituency; it was only the NDC, NPP and PNC agents who were present to authenticate results declared at the collation centre. Builsa South collation centre had agents of the NDC, NPP and PNC signing the constituency results summary sheet while at the Builsa North, Bongo collation centres, only agents of the NDC, NPP, PNC were present to sign the declaration forms. In the Bolgatanga East and Bolgatanga Central constituencies, only agents of the NDC and NPP were on hand to endorse the declared results. At the Binduri Constituency polling centre, only the NDC, NPP and PPP had polling agents who signed the declared results. According to the EC’s guide to candidates and their agents, polling agents play a number of roles to ensure the credibility of the polls. Among these are the fact that they are to closely observe the counting of the votes, making sure that each ballot is counted in favour of the candidate for whom it is cast. They are also to ensure that ballot paper which does not bear the official ballot validation of the polling station is not counted and even ask for a recount if they genuinely think that the votes have not been counted correctly. According to the EC’s handbook, they as a commission attach great importance to the work of polling agents, because they act as watchdogs of the election process, therefore if political parties and parliamentary candidates ensure that their agents do their work well, they will be contributing to enhancing the credibility of the election by helping to detect fraud, impersonation, multiple voting, tampering of ballot boxes and checking misconduct. Overall, the EC holds the view that polling agents enhance the acceptability of the overall elections results by certifying the results of the various polling stations. Writer’s email: benjamin.glover@graphic.com.gh