NDC makes preliminary proposals for electoral reforms ahead of 2024 elections

The Director of Elections for the National Democratic Congress has outlined a number of proposals his party intended to engage with the various stakeholders for considerations and implementation.

Mr Elvis Afriyie Ankrah made these known on Thursday, May 20, 2021 at a Press conference held at their National Headquarters at Adabrakra in Accra.

This comes at the time where the Electoral Commission of Ghana, through its Chairperson, Jean Mensa, on Tuesday, May 18, 2021 outlined four major proposals that the Commission intended to implement at an IPAC meeting.

Kindly read the full proposals the NDC outlined at their Press conference

Ladies and Gentlemen, after a painstaking review of the 2020 elections, the following are the preliminary proposals for electoral reforms which the NDC intends to engage various stakeholders such as the media, civil society organizations, religions leaders, traditional leaders, development partners, the diplomatic community, and the general public. These preliminary proposals are as follows:

1. That, the participation of IPAC and its advisory role in the electoral process should be given legal backing, without encroaching on the constitutional independence of the Electoral Commission.
2. That, the EC adopts an equitable voting formula for political parties in IPAC deliberations based on their representation in Parliament.
3. That, the Electoral Commission complies with the use of the legally-prescribed Statement of Poll/Pink Sheet (Form 8A & 8B) provided for in our Election Regulations to prevent the omission of BVD entries so as to preserve the ballot accounting process and makes it possible to check multiple voting, ballot stuffing, impersonation and other forms of rigging.
4. That, the high rate of rejected ballots recorded in the 2020 general elections be addressed through the use of the appropriate ink pads and that same should be stipulated in our election regulations.
5. That, the EC employs and trains highly competent staff to accurately fill election result forms and collate results so as to forestall the reoccurrence of the widespread cases of arithmetic errors recorded in the 2020 general elections,
6. That, the Electoral Commission reverts to the time-tested election security arrangement where the deployment of security for election purposes is reserved to the Ghana Police service acting within a framework provided by the Electoral commission. This security arrangement should have minimum involvement of the military and no interference whatsoever by so-called National Security operatives, as recommended by the Emil Short Commission.

The party has constituted a committee to come up with a compressive document on electoral reform proposals and we shall share that with you in the coming days.

Signed,
Hon. Elvis Afriyie Ankrah