Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, Ghana’s Electoral Commission chairman, has declared the West African country is not yet able to fully implement electronic voting system.
According to Afari-Gyan, Ghana should not even be thinking of introducing e-voting.
Afari-Gyan was responding to a suggestion made by those who participated in an election review meeting organised by the Electoral Commission with the support of its foreign partners.
The participants suggested the EC should adopt the e-voting system in order to curb electoral fraud.
HumanIPO reported on Monday how Kenya’s Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) experienced failures in its electronic voter registration processes at its 34,000 polling stations across the country.
The chairman however stated Ghana cannot afford to introduce more technological systems in its voting in the near future considering the numerous technology-related shortcomings at the nation’s last general elections which resulted in the EC being dragged before the Supreme Court by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) at the end of last year.
Confirming the shortcomings in the last Ghana general elections 2012, Ghana Decides’ founder, Kwabena Oppong Boateng, told HumanIPO at Social Media Week Lagos last month there were several anomalies with the technology used, especially the biometric technology.
He said the complications led to the commission allowing some people who could not find their details on the biometric register to vote without proper verification.
Afari-Gyan therefore stated that introducing additional technology may prove too complicated for the country.
“We should be careful not rushing to get additional technology to the existing one; it will open ourselves to deeper controversy,” he said.
