Political parties rejected proposal to close polls at 3pm – EC

The Electoral Commission (EC) has revealed that political parties rejected its proposal to close polls at 3 pm on election day.

According to the Commission, election observers had suggested that the EC consider bringing forward the traditional 5 pm closure of polls to 3 pm to avoid late-night collation of results.

In his address at a seminar organised by the Institute for Democratic Governance, themed “EC Procedures for Electoral Disputes and Publication of Election Results,” Director of Training at the Electoral Commission, Dr. Serebour Quaicoe explained that during engagements with various political parties, the Commission proposed ending polls at 3 pm on election day, but the parties rejected this proposal.

“We had wanted to close elections by 3 o’clock because our understanding and thinking is that most of the confusion occurs at night. And now that we have decided that no polling station should have more than 750 voters, some time ago some used to have even 2000 at a polling station.

“In 2020, the threshold was 749, this time 750. No polling station will have more than 750 voters. And with this, it should not take us three hours, if everybody was to be there on time. The ones who are able to do the threshold, we should be able to finish on time. And from experience, counting does not go beyond 2 hours.

“Voting ends by 3 o’clock, by 5, we should have finished the polling station results. So it will now be left with the transmission of the results. But when we met our colleagues, they said, for this year we shouldn’t touch the law.”

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