Moves to reduce rejected ballots in Northern Region
As part of measures to reduce the incidence of rejected ballots in the Northern Region in this year’s general election, NORSAC, a Tamale-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), has instituted a programme to educate voters in four districts in the region on thumb-printing.
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The programme, dubbed: “Strengthening community-led initiative for peaceful and credible elections (SCOPE)” with a US$70,000 financial support from Star-Ghana, started early this month and will end in December.
It includes activities before, during and after the elections on November 7, this year.
The selected districts are West Mamprusi, Central Gonja, Tolon and the Tamale metropolis.
Inception
At the inception ceremony of the programme, held at the Institute of Local Government Studies in Tamale, the Head of Programme and Policy of NORSAC, Madam Hafsatu Sey Sumani, said the aim of the programme was to ensure quality voting.
She said the programme was intended to contribute to peaceful, inclusive and transparent elections in the targeted districts.
She explained that the districts were chosen based on the history of rejected ballots in the region.
“These districts are known to be recording high numbers of rejected ballots in elections,” she said, noting, “we think that without the rejected ballots, there will be peaceful elections”.
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Madam Sumani said the cause of violent confrontations in elections often resulted from arguments over rejected ballots.
Statistics
She expressed the hope that the programme would increase quality voting and also reduce rejected ballots by 10 per cent in the implementing districts.
Madam Sumani said so far, 312 community thumb-printing clinic facilitators had been trained in the implementing districts to carry out the exercise.
She also added that peer-to-peer thumb-printing clinics had been conducted for 12, 480 voters comprising 3,120 young males and 9,360 young females.
Madam Sumani said an inter-household mock thumb-printing clinics reaching 4,200 community members had also been carried out.
Stakeholders
The Northern Regional Director of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Alhaji Razak Saani, called on all stakeholders to come on board and educate voters on proper voting skills in order to reduce the number of rejected ballots in the 2016 elections.
He said the high number of rejected ballots affected the quality of elections and the people’s will.
“It is worrying that in some elections the rejected ballots are more than the figures some presidential candidates get,” he said.