Scenario: Imagine waking up on the 7th of December, 2012 and in the comfort of your home or somewhere else determined by the Electoral Commission, you slot a card into a computer with internet facilities to perform your civic responsibility and constitutional mandate of voting for your parliamentary or presidential candidate.

Scenario: Imagine a general election devoid of long queues, cumbersome documentation ... an election where you don't have to worry about a certain 'macho man' coming to armstrong everybody to steal ballot boxes and an election where you are definite that votes coming in from Odododiodio, Bantama, Manhyia and Ketu South would be as near the truth as possible and come just in time for you to start making your additions and subtractions on the chances of your favourite candidate.

Today, Monday, January 8 2009, The Danquah Institute, with support from other civil society groups, Ghana's Development Partners and the Electoral Commission of Ghana, will begin a 2-day seminar to "interrogate the viability of Electronic Voting (E-voting) and the challenges and advantages of a biometric voter register in Ghana for the 2012 general elections and beyond."

The Danquah Institute, a liberal democratic think tank, with affiliations towards the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has been championing the E-voting cause since the end of Election 2008 when a number of mishaps led to complaints from the winning NDC and losing NPP that aspects of the elections were marred by fraud, intimidation, violence and pure and simple rigging.

But does E-voting stand a chance in Ghana? What are the possibilities and constraints? These are some of the issues that would no doubt come up today at the Alisa Hotel in Ridge, Accra, where the Danquah Institute convenes its seminar.

But what is E-voting? In the lay man's language, it can be described as an electronic means of casting a vote which comprises methods for recognizing humans based on one or more intrinsic physical or behavioral traits and a means of tabulating the votes cast.

Biometric is the word used by the experts and it involves recognizing the fingerprints or eyes of the voter which a machine reads and enables a strict one-person one-vote process. It's been (being) used in many jurisdictions around the world and yes, it is possible in Ghana! In a chance discovery last year during the research into a story it was covering The Mail came across certain insights that point to the possibility of E-voting in Ghana in the not too distant future.

Ghana's electoral system, since the country reverted to constitutional parliamentary democracy in 1992, has seen objections being raised at all the levels - constituency, district, regional or national. Election '92 even ended in a boycott when the New Patriotic Party said the elections had been rigged by the incumbent (P)NDC.

The real or imagined imperfections of the electoral system have given cause for concern about how from time to time elections are passed off as free and fair when in certain parts of the country they've hardly been free, fair or accurate.

Incidences have been documented about how terrible and difficult it is to monitor and observe elections in certain parts of the country; how uneasy and unbearable life would be for anyone to attempt to correct an inaccuracy at a certain polling stations and how in some constituencies, minors are allowed to stuff ballot boxes with impunity! It is a mark of Ghana's low propensity to violence that none of the elections held so far since 1992 have not resulted in post-election violence.

With Election 2008, Ghana came to the brink. Somehow, it gained currency that there would be massive rigging by the incumbent, which was the NPP and the main challenging party, the NDC had made it very clear that a win for the NPP would be unacceptable and resisted.

Expectation of violence was in the air and as Election Day approached Ghana's disintegration also became immanent...The incumbent lost after three run-off and with a razor thin majority, Professor Mills was declared the President of Ghana to succeed outgoing President Kufuor. Ghana came so close to the brink and it was all because of an electoral system that has many avenues for fraud...

E-voting, many experts agree is the way out and remarkably, Ghana already posses the basic technology to achieve that. In a follow up to a story on electronic banking, the E-zwich, The Mail was informed by an official of the Bank of Ghana (the supervising authority of E-zwich) that the technology they are using for the E-zwich card can easily be converted to E-voting.

He asked not to be mentioned but said "If we are given the resources, we can get electronic voting for Ghana in one and a half years." It was a startling revelation which has since been corroborated by others that the biometric passport the country has adopted and the biometric national identification currently being undertaken provide the platform from which the country can introduce E-voting at the shortest possible time.

Electronic voting systems have been in use since the 1960s when punch card systems debuted. The newer optical scan voting systems allow a computer to count a voter's mark on a ballot. Voting machines which collect and tabulate votes in a single machine are used by all voters.

While Ghana struggles with a crucial pronouncement on whether she is ready or not, some countries have already taken the lead by using the system on large scale. The Netherlands, United States, Germany, Brazil, Iran, United Kingdom, Australia, Austria, Canada, Israel, New Zealand, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Portugal, Spain, India and Switzerland are but a few of E-voting countries.

It has been demonstrated that as voting systems become more complex, different methods of election fraud become possible hence the reason why Ghana needs an E-voting system badly.

Electronic voting machines are able to provide immediate feedback to the voter detecting such possible problems as under voting and over voting which may result in a spoiled ballot, a major deficiency in the electoral system. With last year's record number of spoilt ballots serving as a guide, this immediate feedback can be helpful in successfully determining voter intent.

It can also involve transmission of ballots and votes via telephones, private computer networks, or the Internet. Electronic voting technology can speed the counting of ballots and can provide improved accessibility for disabled voters

The last time the Electoral Commission went hi - tech was the introduction of optical mark readers (OMR) into the voter registration system in connection with data capturing in 1995.The Commission continued to pursue the use of optical mark scanners in the voter registration, nomination of candidates and the capturing of election results with the installation of a LAN (Local Area Network) at its head office and a WAN (Wide Area Network) to link the regional and district offices to the head office. But with the barrage of criticisms it has received in the past 18 years of administering the country's general elections, an E-voting agenda is one they might well have to consider.

The Public Relations Officer of the Commission, Mr. Christian Owusu Opare told The Mail that the Commission is not considering making an E-voting move any time soon but had made some headway in their bid to get voters to register with biometric cards as and when it becomes feasible.

He argued that even if Parliament approved of money for an electronic voting system, the Commission won't be able to deliver since it requires training of personnel on how to effectively handle the system.

"Switching from the paper based style of voting to the electronic would involve a lot of planning and preparation which we've not given a thought to at this stage. What we are certain of is that the Commission has a committee in place to work towards getting voters' biometric cards for voting as and when it becomes achievable. Until then, E-voting remains a dream..."

Alhaji Abdul Rahman Harruna Attah and Obed Boafo