Special voting was conducted at 311 designated voting centres in all 275 constituencies across the country.
Tuesday, December 1 special voting, was to allow some categories of EC staff, the security services and the media that would be on national assignment on the general polling day, December 7, to cast their ballot ahead of their deployment.
The polls which started at 7 am at most of the designated places for special voting were conducted by the EC with political party representatives and other election observers, present until polls were closed at 5 PM.
It was conducted with full compliance of covid-19 protocols such as hand washing, wearing of nose masks and social distancing.
In Tamale, the special voting took place at designated centres with majority of them being uniformed personnel and EC staff. However most journalists in the Northern Region couldn’t take part in the special voting because the EC failed to include them in the list for the special voting. The Commission however said those with accreditation would be given priority on voting day to allow them go about their reporting on December 7.
Meanwhile, the EC has said that it is satisfied with the “Special Voting.” The Commission said its initial report collated nationwide indicated that voting at many polling stations started on time, logistics available on time and the exercise so far, been peaceful and smooth.
The Deputy Chairman for the Electoral Commission in-charge of Corporate Services, Dr Bossman Eric Asare, said the Commission was happy that the Biometric Verification Devices (BVD), were working to satisfaction.
He said a BVD machine could verify between 50 to 65 persons within an hour, saying, “We are very happy about the turn of events now and we hope it will continue till the end. It is our conviction that it will be the same next week”.
Dr Asare was full of praise for officials of the Commission for devising innovative ways to ensure strict compliance with the COVID-19 protocols.
A total of 12 presidential candidates are competing for the votes of 17,029,972 Ghanaians to be elected President of the State for the next four years.
