Special voting today

Page 3: Daily Graphic, December 23, 2008.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE race to choose the next President begins today with special voting by people who will be on duty during the presidential run-off on Sunday.
Officials of the Electoral Commission (EC), members of the Ghana Armed Forces, the Ghana Police Service, the Ghana Prisons Service, the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service, the Ghana Immigration Service, the Bureau of National Investigations, media practitioners, as well as staff of essential services, will be casting their ballots at the various police stations.
Voting is expected to start at 7 a.m. and close at 5 p.m. prompt.
Voters will be choosing between Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and Professor John Evans Atta Mills of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
The run-off has become necessary because none of the eight candidates who contested the December 7 presidential election obtained more than 50 per cent of the votes to be declared an outright winner.
Those who fell out after the December 7 polls were the Convention People's Party's (CPP’s) Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom, the People’s National Convention's (PNC’s) Dr Edward Mahama and the Democratic Freedom Party's (DFP’s) Emmanuel Ansah-Antwi.
The rest were Mr Thomas Ward-Brew of the Democratic People’s Party (DPP), Mr Kwabena Adjei of the Reformed Patriotic Democrats (RPD) and Mr Kwesi Amoafo-Yeboah, an independent candidate.
In the December 2 special voting, there were problems such as voters not finding their names on the register, some unable to vote for parliamentary candidates because they were not registered voters in the constituencies where they voted, as well as some media practitioners showing up at the polling stations without their work identity cards.
It is, however, expected that today’s special voting will be without hiccups as there is only one constituency for a presidential poll.
Those who failed to take their work ID cards along in the first round, just like those who encountered various challenges, are expected to address that issue before showing up at the polling stations.
By the EC’s regulations, the ballot boxes for the special voting will be sealed after voting and the ballots will be counted after the December 28 voting.