The Electoral commission (EC) has tasked Presiding Officers (PO) to take custody of the Biometric Verification Device (BVD), ballot boxes, ballot papers and all other materials required for the conduct of the December 7 polls.
The PO is also mandated to supervise the work of Polling Assistants and promptly resolve any issues they may encounter including that of voters during verification as well as maintaining law and order at the polling station.
Election 2016 Presidential and Parliamentary manual tagged: “A Guide to Voters,” made available to the Ghana News Agency indicates that as part of its efforts to ensure smooth electioneering processes, the EC has launched the educational campaign to assist the public understand the roles of the officers who would be in charged to execute various tasks during the December 7 polls.
The PO is also mandated to explain decisions taken on any matter pertaining to the election to a Candidate or Polling Agent, where necessary, undertake thorough counting of the votes cast, and announce the results of the election at the polling station.
The PO is also under obligation to dispatch ballot boxes including election materials to the Returning Officer after the poll.
The PO shall be responsible for giving orders to security officers at the polling station to maintain law and order.
After the voting, the PO must fill appropriate columns accounting for unused ballot papers, spoilt ballot papers, ballot issued to proxy voters and ballots issued to voters on the polling station register.
When counting the votes cast, the PO should unseal the ballot boxes in view of all, starting with the presidential ballots followed by the parliamentary ballots.
After accounting of votes cast and results form filled, the Presiding Officer and Party/Candidates Agents will endorse it, announce the results at the polling station and transport all results and remaining ballot papers to the Returning Officer.
The publication of the EC Guide to the Voter is captured under the “GNA Tracks Election 2016 Project,” being funded by GOIL, the foremost indigenous oil marketing company and CIMG 2015 Petroleum Company of the year.
The project seeks to sensitise the electorate on the various issues raised by political parties, the elections management body and other governance institutions.
It aims at ensuring gender and social inclusion in national politics and to provide voice for the youth, vulnerable groups, opinion leaders and the broader spectrum of the society, and to contribute to the achievement of peaceful polls.
Another objective of the project is to create a platform to dissect the manifestoes of all political parties and provide in-depth analysis of each thematic area to the electorate to enable them to make an informed judgment.
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(Via: NewsGhana)
