The non-partisan project Ghana Decides, launched on March 24, “aims to foster a better informed electorate for free, fair and safe 2012 Elections using online social media tools.”
Ghanaians go to the polls in December 2012 to vote in the Parliamentary and Presidential Elections to either elect a new President or maintain the current government.
In other to help streamline the voter registration process, the country is now implementing its first-ever biometric voter registration in other words, using fingerprint technology to help verify identity.
Ghanaian Bloggers and Social Media Activists are also using social media to publicize the process, correct misconceptions and increase overall attention about the upcoming elections.
The non-partisan project Ghana Decides, launched on March 24, aims to foster a better-informed electorate for free, fair and safe 2012 Elections using online social media tools. An initiative under GhanaBlogging, which itself is a membership-based platform to connect bloggers both in and outside of Ghana who writes about the country.
Getting potential voters to participate in the high-tech fingerprint scanning technology is a huge initiative for Ghana, and it is costing the country $45 Million. Other countries in Africa, including Nigeria, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo, have already implemented similar voting procedures. These countries share Ghana’s frustration with disputes about election results, which come largely due to problems such as people voting more than once.
Using fingerprint technology to verify identity would help ensure that those who can vote are voting and that they do so only once. But issues still remain. Many people are concerned, for instance, that the high-tech tools might cause cancer, a fear which Ghana’s Electoral Commission (EC) has been quick to disclaim.
Those fears are in part what prompted EC to broaden the scope of the voter registration education campaign. As Mr Daniel Amertey Shah, one of Ghana’s Municipal Chief Executives said in an interview with Ghana’s Daily Graphic, they thought it necessary to summon the assembly with the motive of ensuring that necessary information on the biometric voter’s registration is disseminated for the electorate to be also educated.
That’s where Ghana Decides and its outreach efforts on social media come in. The project’s organizers are using Tumblr (which serves as the project’s home base), Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr to put the spotlight on the voter registration process, which started on March 24 the same day Ghana Decides officially launched and ends May 5.
On Twitter, Ghana Decides is promoting the hash-tags #iRegistered and #GhanaDecides to aggregate media about registering and speak out about the entire initiative. The #iRegistered campaign, in particular, is aimed at encouraging more people to register by sharing the experiences of those who have already been through the process.
Read the full article here: How Ghana Is Using Social Media to Promote Voter Registration
Related articles
- Initiating Open Government in Ghana (macjordangh.com)
- How Ghana Is Using Social Media to Promote Voter Registration (mashable.com)
- Ghana Elections Infographic by @GhanaDecides (macjordangh.com)
