The Electoral Commission (EC) has indicated its plans to establish additional polling stations ahead of the 2024 elections, aiming to limit the number of voters per polling station to 500.
During an Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) forum in Accra, Jean Mensa, the chairperson of the EC, explained that this move is intended to alleviate congestion at voting centers.
Jean Mensa stated, “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.
The EC is also considering shifting the closing time of voting from 5:00 pm to 3:00 pm for the upcoming 2024 general elections. Mrs. Mensa emphasized that this adjustment aims to facilitate a transparent and orderly collation of votes by electoral officers in broad daylight.
The proposal is based on lessons learned from the 2020 elections, where about 70 percent of voting centers experienced minimal activity by 1:00 pm.
Mrs. Mensa highlighted, “If you compare the turnout in 2016 to 2020, in spite of the hassle-free process in 2016 and the lack of long queues and lines and so on, we had a voter turnout of 79 percent plus, compared to 67 percent in 2020.”
