ICTs influence on changing face of elections in Ghana: myth or reality?

Presentation @NED by Kwami Ahiabenu, II @kwamigh 25/06/2013

Introduction

Ghana is considered a leader among functional democratic states in Africa, as observed by President Barack Obama during his visit to the country in July 2009. “The people of Ghana have worked hard to put democracy on a firmer footing, with repeated peaceful transfers of power even in the wake of closely contested elections.” 1

The journey to become a multi-party democratic state with democratically elected legislature backed by an independent judiciary did not happen overnight—during its transition to democracy, Ghana experienced four military takeovers (1957, 1960, 1969 and 1979), characterized by massive human rights abuses, suppressed media, lack of freedom of speech, and draconian laws which were responsible for jailing many journalists. Since 1992 when the fourth republic was established with the declaration of the constitution, Ghana has made a steady growth in its democratic credentials. The constitution provides for: an Executive president, unicameral parliament, a council of state, independent judiciary and provisions for an independent media.

The Electoral System

As outlined in Article 43 (1) of the Constitution, the main electoral management body is THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION OF GHANA. The electoral commission is made up of seven members, a chairman, two deputy chairmen and four other members, all of whom are appointed by the President on the advice of the Council of State. The three chairmen have permanent tenure of office and the same conditions of service as judges of the Superior Courts (i.e. the Chairman has conditions of service of Appeals Court Judges while the two Deputy Chairmen have conditions of service of High Court judges). The commission holds presidential and legislative elections every four years and, although the president can only serve a maximum of two four year terms, the current 275 members of parliament do not have any term limit. The commission also organizes council of state elections and district assembly (local government) elections, among others.

Elections

Ghana has successfully held five general elections since the start of the fourth republic in 1992. Though typically Ghana can have up to eight presidential candidates during elections representing both political parties and independent candidates, the political system is dominated by two main political parties—the New Patriotic Party (NPP), who claims conservative credentials, and the National Democratic Congress (NDC), with democratic coloring. “It is ironic to note that the results of our recent election in Ghana mirrored

Because Accountability Counts – A Journalist Guide for covering post elections in Ghana1

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those of the US national election. To illustrate, when the Democratic Party won the Presidential election in the US, the NDC also won the Ghanaian elections and, when the Republican Party won, Ghana’s conservative NPP party won.”

In 2000, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), led by John A. Kufour, assumed power from the incumbent New Democratic Congress (NDC), led by the enigma President Jerry John Rawlings (JJ) a retired Army Air-force Captain who ruled Ghana for 21 years as a military dictator and, for was democratically elected for his last two terms (1992 – 2000).

President Kufour was elected to serve two terms as President, from 2000-2008. In 2008, Ghana witnessed a closely fought election and, with a margin of only 40,000 votes, the NDC won, cementing the ruling party’s ability to hand over power to the opposition smoothly in Ghana.

2012 Elections As Ghanaians were eagerly preparing for the 2012 elections, President Mills died in office on July 24, 2012, with only five months to go before “D day.” His vice president, John Dramani Mahama, was appointed to complete the President’s term in office.

On 7th December 2012, 80.15% of 13,628,817 registered voters cast their ballots at 26,000 polling stations to decide their country’s leader for the next four years under the current democratic dispensation for the fifth time since 1992. The elections were two-fold: the Presidential election, which featured eight presidential candidates from seven main political parties and an independent candidate, and a Parliamentary election which included 1,332 candidates fighting for 275 seats in Ghana’s parliament. During the electoral campaign period, education, health, and job creation dominated the campaign discourse. At the end of the day, there were no reported deaths associated with the elections and only minor electoral violence was recorded. The eight presidential candidates included: JOHN DRAMANI MAHAMA-(NDC), DR. HENRY HERBERT LARTEY (GCPP), NANA ADDO DANKWA AKUFO-ADDO (NPP), PAPA KWESI NDUOM (PPP), AKWASI ADDAI ODIKE (UFP), AYARIGA HASSAN (PNC), MICHAEL ABU SAKARA FOSTER ( CPP), and JACOB OSEI YEBOAH (INDP-independent). As expected, it was close contest between the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP).

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!Figure 1: Ghana 2012 presidential results

After the elections, the Elections commission of Ghana declared John Dramani Mahama of the NDC, winner with 5,574,761 votes, representing 50.70%. According to the laws governing Presidential and parliamentary elections, candidates need more than 50% of the vote to assume the presidency and if none 2

of the candidates have a clear majority, a runoff election is required. NPP candidate Nana Addo Danwa 3

Akufo-Addo was the runner up with 5,248,898 votes, representing 47.74%. In terms of parliamentary elections NDC won the majority of seats 148, NPP won 123 seats, PNC won 1 seat and there are 3 independent MPs in the current parliament. John Dramani Mahama was sworn in as President of Ghana on January 7, 2013.

2012 Ghana Elections Dispute

Based on Section 5 of the Presidential and Parliamentary election laws , NPP candidate Nana Addo Danwa 4

Akufo-Addo, his running mate Dr.Mahamadu Bawumia, and Jake Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey, Chair of the NPP, took The Electoral Commission of Ghana to the supreme court alleging that there was polling fraud and irregularity, therefore challenging the validity of the Electoral Commission’s (EC) declaration of John Mahama as winner of Ghana’s December 7th 2012 Elections. The case is still pending at the Supreme Court.

.42.(1) A person shall not be elected as President of Ghana unless at the presidential election the number of votes cast in his favour is more than fifty per cent 2of the total number of valid votes cast at the election).

42.(2) Where at a presidential election there are more than two candidates and no candidate obtains the number or percentage of votes specified in subsection 3(1) of this section, a second election shall be held within twenty-one days after the previous election.(3) The candidates for a presidential election under subsection (2) of this section shall be the candidates who obtained the two highest numbers of votes at the previous election, and the candidate who obtains the highest number of votes shall be declared elected

Challenge of election of President. 4

5. (1) The validity of the election of the President may be challenged only by a citizen of Ghana who may present a petition for the purpose to the Supreme Court within twenty-one days after the declaration of the result of the election in respect of which the petition is presented.

(2) A declaration by the Supreme Court that the election of the President is not valid shall be without prejudice to anything done by the President before the declaration.

(3) The Rules of Court Committee may, by legislative instrument, make Rules of Court for the practice and procedure for petitions to the Supreme Court challenging the election of a President. (4) Until rules are made under subsection (3) of this section, the Supreme Court may direct the procedure

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Ghana Elections 2012 and Information and Communication Technologies

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are now becoming an important part of almost all aspects of our human endeavors both at the individual level and collectively as societies. Though, most growing economics may not have plethora of ICTs tools such as high internet bandwidth, new digital tools, software applications among others, they have abundance of mobile phones which is now the most visible and prevalent among the basket of ICTs tools. In Ghana, ICTs tools are become more available and getting relative cheaper and the currently there are over 25,618,427 mobile phones (December, 2012) compared 5

to its population of 24,658,823 meaning there is one mobile for each person.” ICTs have already 6

dramatically changed the way elections are conducted in many developed countries and this process is likely to continue and affect more and more emerging democracies, regardless of their level of preparedness to introduce such applications ” and Ghana is not an exception. Integrity of elections process 7

is linked to integrity of democracy itself, ensuring free, transparent elections devoid of vote stealing is a very fundamental requirement; however history is pregnant with countless examples of influencing outcome of election .Free, transparent and fair elections can lead to greater confidence by the general public in 8

election and more importantly in democracy and ICTs tools can help make this possible( Ekabua 2011 ) 9

The 2008 elections in Ghana saw the birth of widespread application of ICTs by stakeholders in the elections continuum and year2012 elections witnessed the growth of these tools especially social media tools. In the coming years, ICTs are expected to play an ever increasing role and influence in Ghana’s election and year 2016 elections will consolidate its influence on the electoral space.

Brief Social Media and ICTs context in Ghana:

•The Total Cellular/Mobile Voice Subscriber Base in Ghana in December, 2012 stood at 25,618,427 10

http://www.nca.org.gh/40/105/Market-Share-Statistics.html5

http://www.statsghana.gov.gh/docfiles/2010phc/Census2010_Summary_report_of_final_results.pdf6

http://www.ec-undp-electoralassistance.org/index.php?7

option=com_content&view=article&id=164&Itemid=164&lang=en

Analysis of an Electronic Voting System TADAYOSHI KOHNO, ADAM STUBBLEFIELD, AVIEL D. RUBIN, 8

DAN S. WALLACH IEEE Computer, Society Press, May 2004.

Reengineering the traditional Electoral Process via Real-Time Registration and e-identification of 9

Voters : An approach for Developing countries, Obeten O. Ekabua and Bassey E. Isong, 2011. Canadian Journal on Data Information and Knowledge Engineering.

http://www.nca.org.gh/40/105/Market-Share-Statistics.html 10

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• 8,049,408 representing 47.7 % of the population (Persons 12 years and older) with mobile phones while1,312,971 representing , 7.8% of the population ( Persons 12 years and older) are using internet facility 11

• Facebook is the most visited site in Ghana; Twitter is No.10 on the list. 46% of Facebook users in Ghana are in the youthful bracket aged 18 – 24 12

• There are a reported 1,645,020 Facebook profiles in Ghana up 432,320 in the last 6 months 13

• Often the number of those accessing news on the Internet– whether on a PC or mobile or both is considerably larger than the readership of physical newspapers 14

In this presentation, I will reflect on the use of ICTs during Ghana’s 2012 Election, focusing on how the following stakeholders applied new digital technologies during this election and concluded with some key recommendations:

• Electoral management body • Citizens • Civil Society Actors • National Elections Security Task Force • Political parties and candidates • Media

1. ELECTORAL MANAGEMENT BODY First time application of biometric system – Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) and Biometric Voter Verification (BVV)

http://www.ghana.gov.gh/census/phc2010.pdf 11

http://www.socialbakers.com/facebook-statistics/ghana12

http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/GH 13

http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2011/11/16228727/ghanacountry-study-roadmap-strategic-application-information-14

communicationtechnology

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Ghana electoral commission, significant application of new digital technologies was the introduction of voter verification and biometric registration. According to International Foundation for Electoral Systems 15

(IFES), biometrics has been used in elections around the world for more than a decade and its application 16

is usually motivated by two main factors to prevent De-duplication or registries, i.e. finding multiple occurrences of the same person in a register; and identification, e.g. for identifying a voter in a polling station on election day. Ghana’s decision to implement a biometric system is in line with these reasons. There a growing number of African countries also utilizing biometric technologies in their elections including Kenya’s 2013 elections, Nigeria 2011 Elections and Uganda 2011 elections among others.

Biometric technologies use physical characteristics, such as voice tone or hand shape, to identify people automatically. The system works by linking external documents—in case of Ghana, one’s passport, birth 17

certificate, or voter ID—to confirm facts recorded at the time of enrollment with the prospective voters’ finger print. During voting, the computer systems pull out the previously supplied information, matching it with the physical characteristic, or finger print. The system is not foolproof, however—even if the biometric system works perfectly, the personal data in the computer, such as your voting eligibility, is only as reliable as the original "source" documentation supplied. 18

Prior to its introduction, a heated national debate waged on between advocates for the implementation of a biometric voter registration in Ghana and opponents to the biometric system. Those in support of the biometric system argued its introduction is the most reliable way to streamline the otherwise bloated and unrepresentative Ghana voter roll. The opposition, on the other hand, mostly founded their arguments on logistics, claiming that Ghana lacks reliable power connections required to run computers and other biometric machinery. Opponents also cited security concerns and questioned the likelihood that the system will work flawlessly.Ultimately, political parties at the Inter-Party Advisory Committee agreed to implement the biometric voter registration, paving the way for the Electoral commission to procure the system for 2012 elections. Also, a decision was taken by the commission and the political parties on “NVNV- NO VERIFICATION, NO VOTE,” which means a voter is only allowed to vote if their biometric data can be verified, with no exceptions.

Overall the implementation of biometric system was relatively successfully, especially in ensuring the voter did not possess duplicate registrations, thereby preventing multiple voting, voter impersonation, and ballot padding, though these achievement did not come without their challenges:

Ghana is using the biometric voter registration solution provided by STL Ghana to create a credible 15

and reliable voter register for the upcoming national elections. Any Ghanaian who is over 18 years of age can proceed to a voter registration center with a form of ID such as a driver's license or passport. After filling out a registration form, providing personal details such as name and age, the registration officer who is on site with a laptop computer will process the information, take the individual’s photograph and fingerprints and issue the voter registration card. The applicant will receive a computer generated voter registration card to use at the polls.( http://vimeo.com/40386806)

http://www.ifes.org/~/media/Files/Publications/Papers/2011/Biometrics_in_Elections_2011.pdf16

http://www.eac.gov/assets/1/Page/Innovations%20in%20Election%20Administration%2018.pdf17

http://www.eac.gov/assets/1/Page/Innovations%20in%20Election%20Administration%2018.pdf 18

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1. A number of underage voters found their way onto the register, reinforcing the view that biometric system is not fool proof and it cannot solve all electoral challenges

2. Some voters’ finger prints could not be read by the verification device leading to their inability to vote. The use of local gin and coca cola was proposed as a solution to correct this issue.

3. Frequent breakdown of verification machines. 4. Short battery life span of verification machine coupled with lack of power supply at some polling

stations. 5. Some biometric verification machines failed to function properly.

These challenges extended voting into the following day to enable those who were prevented from voting to be able to cast their ballots without biometric verification. Today, Ghana’s ongoing Supreme Court case challenging the validity of the 2012 general elections is in part due to debate surrounding ballots cast without prior biometric verification.

Electoral Commission Website and the Voter Verification SMS Mobile Platform The electoral commission website (http://www.ec.gov.gh/) was updated regularly prior to the elections and it served as a useful voter education platform for voters. During the anticipation of the release of results after the elections, the website crashed several times. After many failed attempts to reboot the page, the electoral commission was forced to announce the final results of the election on its facebook page since the official website was still down by the time the results were ready to be released. This situation demonstrates the urgent need for the commission to invest in a more robust results relay system since it will go a long way to ensure visibility of official results. The commission also had a You Tube channel and twitter account which were not regularly updated.

After completing the voter registry, the commission undertook publicly displayed the Provisional Voters Register (PVR) to give prospective voters an opportunity to crosscheck their record in order to assess whether any corrections needed to be made. This was done at a number of centers throughout the country. The commission also made it possible for voters to crosscheck their record using their mobile phones based on an SMS system, without having to go to a physical center. Registered voters made use of this service by sending an SMS with their 10-digit Biometric Voters Registration ID to a short code number 19

1413 at the cost of 30GHp on all Ghana’s 5 mobile networks (TIGO, MTN, EXPRESSO, VADAFONE & GLO) and the system replies with the users’ name and other information such as age, sex, district, region and polling station as captured on the PVR. If a registered voter noticed any error in their personal information, he/she is expected to visit a voter center to correct the error. Currently there is no ICTs system in place to correct biometric voter registration errors sent via SMS and enact other changes required.

Short codes are special telephone number which are relatively shorter than full 19

telephone numbers making them easy to remember and they are used to facilitate the provision of value added telephony services especially on mobile phones.

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e-Voting for Ghana’s 2016 General Elections ? As Ghana prepares for the next major general elections in 2016, there is an ongoing debate regarding the application of e-voting. Ghana’s Electoral Commissioner Dr. Afari Gyan is doubtful that Ghana has the 20

ability to implement an electronic voting system in the not too distance future, considering the multiple inconsistencies that the country witnessed in the 2012 general elections . His strong position against its 21

implementation will not put an end to this debate, but will help to make it more lively and animated in the months to come.

2. CITIZENS Most citizens connect with the political system through interactions with political parties, politicians, electoral management board and other stakeholders in the elections value chain. Overall, citizens’ engagement and participation using ICTs tools and mechanisms is growing, but not very influential. This usually takes the form of mobile phone calls, SMS, social media and online platforms. Stakeholders must invest in citizens’ engagement via new digital technologies such online platforms and mobile phone applications beyond media and face to face engagement and participation. There is low investment in this area because of slow uptake of some citizens, therefore it is expected that as more people begin using new digital technologies, even in remote villages, then stakeholders in the elections space will be able to leverage the information, communication and participation opportunities that ICTs offer.

3. AFRICAN ELECTIONS PROJECT African Elections Project (www.africanelections.org) was established in 2008 by www.penplsubytes.org and since then covered elections in 11 African countries across 4 languages (English, French, Portuguese and Arabic). The African Elections Project covered Ghana’s 2012 elections undertook 2 key projects: Enabling peaceful, credible, and transparent elections using new media and Ghana‘s first Social Media Tracking Centre (STMC).

Recently in partnership with Highway Africa (http://www.highwayafrica.com/), we are currently covering the Kenya Elections. Our key objective is to learn about how the media and civil society actors use social media to cover elections so we can design better training tools for journalists using social media to cover elections. For Ghana’s 2012 Elections we undertook two key projects: 1) Enabling peaceful, transparent, and credible elections in Ghana using new media project, and 2) Social Media Tracking Center.

“In Internet voting world, a voter would be able to gather information at almost zero cost from the 20

Internet and then cast a ballot from the privacy of their own home, at the time of their convenience, with the information that they may need to cast an informed ballot right in front of them” Electronic Voting, Thad Hall, 2012 , Electronic Democracy. (Norbert Kersting-ed)

http://allafrica.com/stories/201303051188.html 21

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Enabling peaceful transparent and credible elections in Ghana using new media project

The “Enabling Peaceful Transparent and Credible Elections in Ghana Using New Media Project” was coordinated by the International Institute for ICT Journalism (Penplusbytes) with funding from STAR-Ghana (www.starghana.org). STAR-Ghana is a multi-donor pooled funding mechanism (Funded by DFID, DANIDA, EU and USAID) to increase the influence of civil society and Parliament in the governance of public goods and service delivery, with the ultimate goal of improving the accountability and responsiveness of Ghana’s government, traditional authorities and the private sector. The project provided an array of new digital technologies before, during and after the 2012 elections in Ghana. Below are the ICT tools and apps used for the coverage:Online Info & knowledge platform: http://africanelections.org/ghanaUshahidi: http://ghvotes2012.comFacebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ghanavotes2012 Twitter: https://twitter.com/ghanaelections @ghanaelections #ghanaelectionsGoogle +: https://plus.google.com/109471488372215322110/postsGhana Elections Mobile App: http://africanelections.org/jangbeeshi.phpPhotos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ghanaelections/ & http://twitpic.com/photos/ghanaelections#Ghanaelections 2012 Videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/ghanaelectionsWhatsApp: +233202841029 or +233241995737BBM: 28F11BFF or 21685758 ( blackberry messenger) SMS: subscribe by sending letters AEP to 1945, AEP to +233241995737 (International)Contribute: Prefix Message with AEP to 7000(MTN users) and 1902 (Airtel, Tigo, Vodafone users)

Though the focus of this project was mainly on online platforms and social media, another key objective included media monitoring of selected, radio, TV, newspaper and online outlets. This monitoring process resulted in the production of the following paper, “Emergent Confrontational Political Subculture: A Content Analysis of Media Coverage of Violence in the 2012 General Elections of Ghana,” which the African Elections Project expects to publish in summer 2013.

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Ghana’s first Social Media Tracking Centre (SMTC)

For the third time in Africa’s elections history, a Social Media Tracking Center (SMTC) – a system to monitor and respond in real-time to reports emanating from social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Ushahidi – was deployed during Ghana’s 2012 presidential and parliamentary elections. The Ghana SMTC was established through a partnership between the Georgia Institute of Technology, Penplusbytes, Nigeria’s Enough is Enough, and Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST), and with funding and support from DFID (UK Department for International Development). This partnership of domestic, regional, and international organizations staffed and supervised the SMTC for 50 straight hours from December 7th to 9th 2012. The SMTC approach grew out of Nigeria's 2011 national elections where it was created and managed by Enough is Enough, the Yar’Adua Foundation, Harvard’s Berkman Center, MIT’s Center for Civic Media, Georgia Tech’s Technology and International Development Lab and others.

The technology at the middle of an SMTC is the Aggie social media tracking software, developed at Georgia Tech. For Ghana’s election, Penplusbytes identified social media sources from Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Ushahidi, and individual blogs, which were streamed in real time to Aggie. The entire SMTC team then brainstormed an initial list of keywords relevant to the election that Aggie would pick up from these social media source feeds. As the election and subsequent vote tabulation carried on, sources and keywords were added or dropped based upon activity. Any mention of a keyword across the sources would then appear as a real-time report. By analyzing and visualizing the populated reports, Aggie was able to present trends. Trends were grouped around voting logistics, violence, political parties, etc. The SMTC team watched what was trending and could quickly detect possible election irregularities or occasions of violence that warranted further attention; these reports were then categorized as an incident.

SMTC trackers in Ghana provided valuable input by communicating the relevant social media reports to appropriate stakeholders. Incidents of election irregularities, voting fraud, violence, etc. were communicated to the police, Electoral Commission, election observers, and the media. SMTC participants were physically placed in police and Electoral Commission (EC) headquarters, and other relevant locations, to ensure effective communication of the social media reports to appropriate stakeholders.

4. CIVIL SOCIETY ACTORS AND OTHERS

Civil society actors were at the forefront of applying of ICTs to the 2012 elections in Ghana, with project and activities spanning the whole elections continuum. The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) presidential and vice-presidential debate was broadcast on You Tube, covered extensively on Facebook and twitter and some media houses provided live texts online.

Ghana decides, which was implemented by BloggingGhana (BloGh), a membership-based organization of people who use various online social media platforms to cover a wide variety of issues about Ghana with funding by STAR-Ghana aimed to educate the youth, civil society organizations and institutions on the

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effective use of social media, train participants to use different types of social media platforms and collectively use social media for positive change in Ghana. The project harnesses the collective power of youth as they cover Ghana’s elections using social media, such as @ghanadecides and Facebook among others.

VOTO amplifies the voice of the underheard, using SMS or voice services in local languages, this innovative notification and survey platforms is designed to improve communication between citizens and the governments, aid organizations, and businesses that serve them. During Ghana’s 2012 Elections, VOTO was deployed to conduct national using SMS technology with the aim of helping improve the quality of the policy debates leading to the elections.

Google also set up a page for 2012 elections aggregating key issues, news and providing relevant links @ http://www.google.com.gh/elections/ed/gh

Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) undertook a number projects related to the elections, with Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) as a lead initiative which was formed in 2000, as a network of various civil society groups to observe the Presidential and Parliamentary elections in 2000. During the 2012 elections, CODEO recruited, trained and deployed 4,000 election observers, including 1,200 Rapid Response Observers. Aided by communication technology, the coalition’s election observation activities included the deployment of parallel vote tabulation (PVT ), which mirrored the official 22

vote count independently using SMS. Election observers not only collected information about the conduct of the elections, they also recorded vote tallies for onward transmission to CODEO’S central results processing center.

Institute for Democratic Governance ( IDEG) working with Civic Forum Initiative (CFI) deployed National Elections Situation Room( ESR) during Ghana’s 2012 elections, with the objective of getting accurate and credible information from Regional Situation Rooms spread throughout the country, to help address potential issues which could spark conflict using a call center.

TechAid in partnership with Islamic Peace and Security Council-IPASEC (http://www.ipasec.org) undertook a Peace Project aimed at ensuring a an election free of violence in 2012 in the Zongo Communities. The project was founded by His Eminence the National Chief Imam and Grand Mufti of the Republic of Ghana, Sheikh Dr. Osmanu Nuhu Sharubutu, The system provided an effective information broadcast and feedback platform with database management capabilities that was used for data analysis and projects reports using TechAide’s mobile-based PROLink solution.

5. NATIONAL ELECTIONS SECURITY TASK FORCE (NESTF) As part of mechanism for ensuring law and order, during Ghana’s 2012 elections, a National Elections Security Task Force was established with membership drawn from the country’s national security departments, including the Police Service, Armed Forces, National Security Coordinating Council, Bureau of National Investigation, and the Electoral Commission, to name a few. The Ghana Police Service led the

http://www.cddghana.org/_upload/general/PVT%20PDF%20FAQ%202.pdf22

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task force and the Police played a supplementary role. Although the task force did not have any particular ICTs project support for their activities, the use of mobile phones played an important role in coordinating the work of task force members spread throughout the country.

6. POLITICAL PARTIES AND CANDIDATES Political parties and their presidential and parliamentary candidates also found ways to apply ICTs during the 2012 elections in Ghana. For example, they created websites and made use of social media and mobile phones to reach out and engage with their respective constituencies. During this election, some political parties significantly increased their budget on online campaign advertising, including on social media such as Facebook, sending out bulk SMS alerts, and campaign messages (for example, see below).

! Figure 2: showing text message from presidential candidate

In order to raise funds the NPP, launched mobile payment system to enable party members pay their dues and make donations. For registered members party members, sending the following key words “ NPP + party ID number to mobile short codes MTN (12012), Airtel (2012), Vodafone (+2012), Expresso (2012) and Tigo (2012) automatically deduct their dues from the users’ mobile phone call minutes (airtime). Non-party members can also send their contribution to the same short code using the following key words “NPP + name of the sender” and GH¢1.00(0.50usd) is deducted per each text message sent

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6. MEDIA The print, radio, and television media in Ghana special elections coverage project consists of dedicated elections websites such as http://elections.peacefmonline.com; http://edition.radioxyzonline.com/election; http://graphic.com.gh/G-Dashboard.html; http://www.gbcghana.com/?launch=home_election;http://www.citifmonline.com/?id=1.1174436; the use of social media such as twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and Google plus; mobile phone news alert services and the use of mobile as a journalistic tool for newsrooms to stay in touch with their correspondents in the field. The media also rely heavily on user content generation (UCG) mostly through phone calls, SMS, Facebook and twitter during their elections coverage.Most media houses, especially radio and TV stations, were providing provisional results during the 2012 vote count. Some attempted to post these results online, but most of them were not successful except http://elections.myjoyonline.com/ , whose results tally center online was able to announce the winner of presidential race ahead of the Electoral Commission’s formal announcement. The Ghana Press Centre set up a result relay center, in order to transmit official results from the Electoral Commission’s “strong room” (national results tally center) via an online system to Ghana’s Press Centre Results Relay Centre, however most of the official results were slow to be released, so many of the media houses and journalists had to instead turn their attention to the provisional results.

Some political parties online and social media platforms :

• NPP http://akufoaddo2012.com/ Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/NPP-Ghana-Official/153512561414603 Twitter https://twitter.com/GHANANPP

• NDC http://ndc.org.gh/ Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/pages/NDC-FOR-2012/337534466120 Twitter - https://twitter.com/OfficialNDCGh

• CPP http://conventionpeoplesparty.org/ Facebook http://www.facebook.com/groups/183061885072731/ Twitter https://twitter.com/CPPGhanaOnline Presidential Candidate http://voteabusakara.com/

• PPP http://www.pppghana.org/ Twitter https://twitter.com/pknduom Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pknduom

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7. RECOMMENDATIONS AND OUTLOOK FOR THE 2016 ELECTIONS Ghana’s next general elections will take place on December 7th 2016 and they are expected to be run by a new Electoral commissioner, since the current commissioner, Dr. Afari Gyan will begin compulsory retirement by turning 70. This will certainly have important implications for the country’s next elections. Public trust in the new commissioner is going to be a key requirement for successful elections. This election is going to be closely fought between the ruling NDC party and the main opposition party, the NPP. Whichever side wins, it is likely that there will be an electoral results dispute because this is such a contested election. Therefore it is essential to protect candidates right to legally protest against the electoral results in order to prevent any escalation of violence.

Recommendations

The introduction of new digital technology solutions for elections is a time consuming processes, especially given the need to test and iron out any technical challenges, therefore it is important to focus on developing these solutions as soon as possible. Also we must remember that ICTs present a double edge sword—it is critical that we work towards harnessing the favorable impact of technologies while at same time mitigating their unfavorable influence. The use of ICTs applications in elections can be quite risky since it is impossible to develop a flawless system so putting into place security system is very important in order to minimize incorrect elections results 23

In addition to the biometric system, there is a need to introduce Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) based voters’ verification card which utilizes Electronic Product Code (EPC) network providing real-time registration/identification of voters before they cast their ballots. EPC provides the mechanism to compare votes at polling station with the one recorded at the central database, adding another layer of verification thereby reducing electoral fraud (Ekabua 2011).

1. e-Voting should be debated widely and a consensus should be reached before there is any 24

attempt to implement it during elections. If such a decision is made, we should experiment with e-Voting at local elections level before scaling up to national level elections.

2. All stakeholders must invest more in location-based solutions using Geographic Information System (GIS); for example, the situation in which Electoral Commission agents could not find the exact location of some polling stations, leading to delays in the start of the polls could have been avoided if the Electoral Commission GIS platform http://maps.cersgis.org/elections2012/ was customized on mobile devices to provide location geographic information for their agents.

3. The National Elections Security Task Force (NESTF) must invest in the ICTs system, including social media monitoring capability

4. Though costly, more backup systems for elections technology platforms, including a mobile response center, should be put in place.

Implementation of secured online voting systems using steganography and cryptography G. Mohan 23

Kumar, S. Sathya, J. Ashok, R. Suminthrah, V.S. Chitra

“In Internet voting world, a voter would be able to gather information at almost zero cost from the 24

Internet and then cast a ballot from the privacy of their own home, at the time of their convenience, with the information that they may need to cast an informed ballot right in front of them” Electronic Voting, Thad Hall, 2012 , Electronic Democracy.

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5. The Electoral Commission should consider setting up an Application Programming Interface (API) to relay the results directly to the media and other stakeholders, instead of passing them through a physical results center.

6. The Result Relay System should move from faxing pink results sheets to a mobile and internet-based system—though we must learn from the Kenya 2013 Elections experience, especially the failure of their electronic results relay platform. Also, the commission must continue investing in the use of new digital technologies in its back office operations while providing continuous training for its team members.

7. We need to push for social media literacy so that it will be a mass based movement across the whole country, including difficult to reach villages.

8. In addition to SMS, which is text based, more elections related voice mobile services should be deployed since only 36% of Ghanaians use SMS when communicating . 25

9. Civil society actors should open up and do more information and knowledge sharing. Apart from “peace industry” they must focus on other important elements of the elections continuum, especially increasing citizens’ engagement and participation.

In conclusion, each passing elections is an important step for Ghana in consolidating its democracy. Though its elections processes are improving with each election, the country still has a long road ahead. Information and Communication Technologies cannot solve all of the electoral challenges, but they presents huge opportunities for organizing better elections in Ghana and these opportunities can be realized when the innovative deployment of ICT applications are blended creatively with best electoral practices.

5th Afrobarometer 2012 www.afrobarometer.org 25

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