Director of Electoral Services at the Electoral Commission, Dr. Serebour Quaicoe has rated as excellent the performance of the Commission in the just ended Special Voting exercise.
According to Dr. Serebour Quaicoe, his rating is as a result of the outcome of the exercise which he said was successful and peaceful.
“I wouldn’t want to mark but you should be able to mark because this an A performance. Where I schooled there was no A+ else I would have said A+,” Dr. Quaicoe told a host on JoyNews TV.
He said, aside some minor glitches which were recorded in few Constituencies, reports from electoral officials and his personal observation indicated that the exercise was smoothly conducted across the country under strict observance of Covid-19 protocols.
Dr. Quaicoe was particularly impressed with the effectiveness of the Commission’s newly acquired Biometric Verification Devices (BVD). With the exception of some few voters in the Awutu Senya East who, he said, were verified facially as result of challenges with the BVD, the EC’s Director of Electoral Service stated that all participants of the Special Voting were successfully verified through the fingerprint verification process.
This, he said, makes the EC confident of a successful process on the day of elections.
“Wherever I went, my attention was on the BVDs because this is the first time, we are using them for an election and with the exception of Kasoa in the Awutu Senya East where two people have to be verified facially, all the voters went through the fingerprint verification.
There was no manual verification incident and it is an assurance that the New BVDs are very efficient. The process has been successful and when it comes to Covid-19 protocols, all the people adhered strictly to the protocols,” he stated.
Dr. Serebour Quaicoe also commended agents of the political parties for their conduct and cooperation with officials of the EC at the various polling stations.
“Again, all the places that I visited; you could see the rapport among the agents. If you go there and standby, there is total understanding among the agents,” he added.
The Special Voting Exercise, which took place in 311 designated voting centers in all 275 Constituencies, was meant for people who will be playing key roles in the conduct of the election on December 7.
However, some of the people expected to take part in the exercise could not find their names on the register.
Dr. Quaicoe, who expressed shock at the development, said the EC had provided enough room for such persons to have gotten their names onto the Special Voting List.
He believes the persons involved might have failed to compile with the directive of the commission for their names to be included in the list of Special Voters hence, their names will still be on the main electoral register.
Dr. Quaicoe assured them of an opportunity to exercise their franchise on the day of elections.
