Akufo-Addo: Biometric Voting System Must Be Verifiable

The flagbearer of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has called on the Electoral Commission of Ghana to put in place a verification system in addition to the biometric registration system which Ghana would be using in the 2012 general elections. According to Nana Addo, adding a verification system to the biometric voting process would help check cases of double voting, impersonation and several other electoral malpractices that crop up during elections. The NPP flagbearer cited neighboring Ivory Coast as a clear example of a country that employed the biometric voting system but fell short of placing an apt verification system in place at the various polling stations. He said �La Cote D�Ivoire is a classic example of a country that had a biometric registration system but it was not one which had a verification input at the level of the polling stations and look at what the dispute in that country brought to that poor country. �Five to Six months of tremendous strife almost to the level of civil war, several thousand losing their lives, all because of one man�s determination to hang onto power at all cost, assisted by the absence of a more concrete, a more valid system of verification�. Speaking on Multi TV on Monday August 15, Nana Akufo-Addo mentioned that Ghana�s democracy is still growing and neeDS the collective effort of the entire nation and the commitment of the electoral commission to ensure that the democratic tenets of this country are entrenched. He said Ghana has come a long way of accommodating the imperfection and irregularities of the old systems in the electoral process and �if today we are making a conscious decision that we want to improve the quality of our register, improve the quality therefore of our electoral process, then it make sense that if we are taking that important leap and it is going to cause us so much money then let us get true value for money out of it. "Let us make sure that when you go to the polling station and you put your finger in the system, the system would say you have already voted and you cannot vote again, that is really what it is and ones that system is there, the whole process of multiple voting and all these abuses go away�.