Support your proposal to close polls at 3PM with data, not the casual observation – Prof Asare tells EC Boss
Professor Kwaku Asare, a Fellow at the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD Ghana), has urged the Electoral Commission (EC) to support its proposal to shut polls at 3 p.m. with statistics.
Prof Asare observes that Mrs Jean Mensa did not present any facts to back her position other than the observation that in 2020, over 70% of polling locations were vacant at around 1 PM.
After explaining it as an accidental observation, he stated that this is not evidence.
Speaking on the Ghana Tonight show on TV3 on Tuesday, December 19, the United States-based Ghanaian Professor who is also a private legal practitioner said “What problem are we trying to solve, what other problem will arise as a result of trying to solve that problem? As I understand it, the EC is arguing that if you close the poll early at 3 PM, it is still not dark so there is transparency, and you get early results, which is all good. On the other hand, when you close the poll too early, there is the likelihood that you might disenfranchise some voters but the key feature of our electoral system is that we want people to vote, we don’t want to disenfranchise anyone.
“So you have to carefully strike the balance between this transparency and disenfranchising people. The EC does not provide any data to support her stance beyond observing that in 2020 about 70 percent of the voting centers were empty at about 1 PM, that is not evidence, that is a casual observation, That was a covid era and then here there is a chance of many people showing up at 4 or at 5 depending on their work schedule.
“So it triggers an important question about the way we make laws or subsidiary legislation generally in this country. We have been doing this constitutional business for 30 years and the most important or one of the most important things in constitutional regime is the administrative state and by the administrative state, I mean agencies, authorities, etc that make laws, what we call subsidiary legislation. So you can have the laws that are made by parliament, we call those statutes, we all see the process and so on but the bulk of the laws are made by these agencies in the form of subsidiary legislation.
“Article 23 and Article 296 require that those laws, before they are made, follow some process. First of all, the EC cannot just announce a proposal, the EC has to actually put something in writing, an exposure draft, circulate that exposure draft to all stakeholders set a commoner window, give people about three months to bring comments a then distill those comments and hold hearings, so that you can have questions and answers. After those hearings, the EC members vote on the proposal and then they write their rationale for the position that they have taken.”
While announcing the plan, the Commission’s Chair, Jean Adukwei Mensa, stated that this would allow election officers to aggregate ballots in broad daylight to promote openness and orderliness.
Speaking at an inter-party discussion and stock-taking meeting convened by the National Peace Council in Accra on Thursday, December 14, she said that the suggestion derives from the 2020 elections, in which around 70% of polling centers were vacant by 1:00pm.
“In 2020, 70 percent of our polling centres had a voter threshold of 500 and below. This time we intend to ensure that all our polling station centers have a threshold of 500 voters and below. In the same vein, we will increase the number of our polling stations nationwide.
“We believe that this will go a long way to reduce the long queues that characterize our elections and allow for a smooth, seamless, hustle-free voting process. In 2020, it took voters not more than five minutes to cast their votes due to the introduction of this policy.
“Based on our 2020 experience and also feedback from several observer groups we propose to close the polls at 3:00pm.
“Our experience in 2020 reveals that by 1:00pm, 70 percent of our polling stations were empty of voters as most voters had cast their votes. This made it possible because the threshold of most polling centers was reduced to 500 voters per voting center.
“This was coupled with the robust verification devices that were deployed to the polling stations. We are convinced that by closing the polls at 3:00pm, we will be able to count and collate in broad daylight and this will promote the needed transparency and orderliness that we so desire,” Mrs. Mensa said.