[ 2016-11-11 ]

EC Urged To Develop Timetable To Prevent Late Disqualification Of Candidates
Former Commissioner of the Commission on Human
Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Mr.
Justice Emile Short, has urged the Electoral
Commission (EC) to develop a timetable that would
ensure that the disqualification of presidential
candidates does not occur too close to the
election date.

He said that candidates and political parties
spend money and time in their bid to meet the
nomination requirements and a disqualification at
the last minute is not the news that candidates
and their teeming supporters would like to hear.

"To avoid a potential repetition of what is
occurring this year, I would like to urge the
Electoral Commission to enhance its participatory
approach to enlarge the envelope of participation
in our democratic governance process and apply the
rules of natural justice and due process as
affirmed by the courts when applying the law and
rules of procedure", Mr. Short added.

Mr. Short gave the advice when he launched Vote
Match Ghana, an interactive medium for
facilitating voter education and engendering
accountability from duty bearers, in Accra on
Tuesday. Vote Match Ghana is a project of the
Africa Center for International Law &
Accountability (ACILA), a research and education
think tank incorporated under US and Ghana law.

It is recalled that the EC disqualified 12
presidential aspirants for errors on their
application forms in October. Some of the
disqualified aspirants went to court and the court
ordered the EC to give the disqualified aspirants
the opportunity to make corrections on their
forms.

On Wednesday, the EC announced that it had
approved the applications of three of the
disqualified aspirants, including the National
Democratic Party, Progressive People’s Party,
and People’s National Convention.

Explaining the Vote Match concept, Mr. William
Nyarko, Project Manager of Vote Match Ghana and
Executive Director of ACILA, said Vote Match has a
quiz component, which tests a likely voter’s
political preference in a few statements, adding
that the questions on the quiz are based on the
manifestos of the presidential
candidates/political parties.

"A voter is presented with questions, representing
the policies of the candidates. At the end of the
short quiz, the voter is presented with a result,
which provides information indicating that based
on the choices selected, the voter agrees more
with the policies of one candidate than the
others”, Mr. Nyarko said.

He explained that in addition to the quiz, there
is a second aspect to Vote Match Ghana, which is
an accountability component.

“The accountability component tracks the
manifesto promises of the candidate after the
candidate wins the election and takes office.

The public will be invited to take periodic
surveys to assess the performance of the duty
bearer. ACILA will analyze and release the results
in the form of a “Job Approval” rating”, he
said.

He noted that some of the outcomes of the
deployment of the Vote Match include voters who
are informed about the policies of the
presidential candidates and are able to
distinguish between the policies for informed
decision-making; an electioneering campaign based
on issues and the proffering of alternative
solutions, and an informed electorate that holds
the duty bearer accountable to the policies the
duty bearer proffered during the electioneering
campaign.

Mr. Emmanuel Korsi Senyo, lead technical
consultant of the Vote Match Ghana project
explained the technical components of the project,
including algorithm and coding, ensure that the
quiz component works to deliver a result to a
person to takes the quiz regardless of the choices
the quiz taker makes.

In a message, Dr. Jennifer Hasty of the University
of Pennsylvania, USA, congratulated ACILA for
developing and designing Vote Match, an innovative
online tool, to promote awareness of the issues
facing Ghanaians and help likely voters make an
issues-based choice among presidential
candidates.

Dr. Hasty, who is also a Fulbright Specialist and
who recently assisted ACILA on the Vote Match
project when she was in Ghana, added that Vote
Match is also a tool of record and accountability.


“When voters choose their candidates according
to policies that are spelled-out publically (and
available online), then candidates know that
voters support those policies and they must follow
through on them”, she added.

The Vote Match initiative was based on an earlier
survey conducted by ACILA on the issues affecting
the electorate in December 7 presidential election
of Ghana. The survey results showed that the top
three issues on the needs of the majority of the
respondents were jobs, cost of living, and
corruption.

Source - Peacefmonline

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