No e-voting in 2012 elections but biometric register may be used

The Electoral Commission (EC) has made it clear that electronic voting (e-voting) will not be applicable in the 2012 general election because the time is not yet appropriate for that system.

It, however, indicated that it would most likely use a biometric register for the conduct of Election 2012.

The Deputy Chairman (Finance) of the EC Mr David Adenze Kanga made this known to the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday after a meeting with the leadership of the four political parties with representation in Parliament.

He said there was the need for the nation to hasten slowly with respect to e-voting.

“For electronic voting, we are not going to be there in 2012. Our own view is that we should encourage corporate bodies and institutions to begin to use e-voting for their own internal elections so that people will get use to e-voting such that by the time the commission is ready and when we go national, people would have appreciated the difficulties of e-voting, if there are any,” he submitted.

Mr Kanga said, that was very important because when e-voting was used suddenly, there might be some misunderstanding at the end of the elections and some people might not accept the results.

He said biometric registration would go on, so that by next year there would be a new biometric register for the conduct of the 2012 general election.

Mr Kanga was speaking at a meeting which afforded officials of the EC and all the major political parties in the country.

Source: Daily Graphic