As it is the practice in every election year, special voting precedes the general voting day, which is fixed as December 7.
This special voting is organised for professionals and other persons who would have special duties to discharge on the voting day, particularly security personnel, officials of the Electoral Commission (EC) and journalists.
Yesterday the special voting took place in 14 instead of all the 16 regions of the country; the Eastern and Western regions will have their turn on Thursday, December 5.
In the case of the delay in the Eastern Region, it has been reported that a single defaced ballot paper found among the lot meant for the region had been taken out of the printing house of Checkpoint Limited supervised by the National Intelligence Bureau, the National Security, the police, as well as the agents of the political parties and staff of the EC and was earmarked for destruction by burning.
However, it found its way out of the printing house.
In the light of the revelation, the EC, together with the political parties, took the decision that in order to ensure guaranteed integrity, transparency and accountability of the voting in the Eastern Region, all the ballot papers for the region should be recalled for new ones to be printed.
Even though nothing wrong had been reported about the ballot papers for the Western Region, the EC thought since it is the same Checkpoint Limited which printed these ones, it was prudent to recall this region's ballot papers too as a precautionary measure.
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For some time now, The Ghanaian Times has been advocating a free, fair and transparent election process, as that will eventually bring about peaceful elections.
The paper agrees that the events on the voting day are important, but believes those leading to the day and days to the inauguration of the President-elect and sometime afterwards are equally important, if not more important.
The sages say coming events cast their shadows before, and this is to say that signs so far indicate the EC is really prepared by all means to deliver free, fair and transparent elections for peace to prevail in the country.
Under normal circumstances, most people would have agreed that just one defaced ballot paper would have no significant effect on the results of the special voting and neither on the national results.
Besides, why should just a single defaced ballot paper cause the reprinting of the whole lot of ballot papers for two regions at new printing houses and at an otherwise avoidable huge extra cost?
There could have been a hullabaloo raging if the EC had treated the defaced ballot saga as business as usual.
This has been avoided and the once vilified EC is being commended by political parties like the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the People's National Convention (PNC).
The Ghanaian Times has always believed that the EC will not fail the country with regard to the December 7 elections.
All that is needed is for all the stakeholders, particularly the political parties and their supporters; security personnel; and the media to have cool heads and cooperate with the EC to deliver its mandate for the peace of the whole country.
