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Don't just vote and leave; stay and videotape - IMANI to voters

According to him, the Supreme Court’s verdict on the 2012 election petition has put the country into a dangerous situation, particularly when it comes to organising elections.

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He argues that “the effect of the Supreme Court ruling is that today there is no law, no law regulating elections in Ghana,” and hence on election day, the role of the electorate is to “vote and stay there [polling station].”

“If you really want the will of people to be expressed, have as many people as possible in what I call a filming chain...I’m quite sure that there is no law that restricts people from staying at the polling station till the vote is counted. There is no law that stops anybody from filming the process until it is finished. There is no law that stops you from standing within reasonable distance from the electoral officer and observing what he is doing,” Kofi Bentil, who is also the Vice President of Imani Centre for Policy and Education, said.

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He made these comments during a Public Forum on credible elections organised by pressure group, Let My Vote Count Alliance on Tuesday, August 16, 2016.

His suggestion seems to go contrary to calls by the Electoral Commission, over the years, for voters to return home after casting their ballots in order to prevent any confusion at the polling stations.

The Forum was under the theme “The Public Forum was on the theme: "Ensuring Credible elections; The Role of the Elecorate."

Other speakers at the event were Kathleen Addy, a member of pressure group OccupyGhana and a gender advocate, as well as Evans Aggrey Darko, a political science lecturer at the University of Ghana.

Both speakers used the occasion to call on voters to ensure that they  cast their ballots on election day as that is the only way citizens can have the change they desire.

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