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Some Ghanaians have expressed concerns about the electoral system, saying that it was likely that a wrong vote tally would be announced at the close of polls at the 2016 General Elections.
 
Nonetheless, these people were of the conviction that the elections would be peaceful, free and fair.

These were revealed in a pre-election survey by the Centre for Democratic Development - Ghana (CDD – Ghana).

The pre-election survey took responses from Ghanaians in 291 villages and towns across 168 districts in the country in the month of July 2016.

According to the survey, most of the respondents showed a high level of awareness about the 2016 General Elections with about 93 per cent being registered voters.

The survey also revealed that 76 percent of the respondents gave their definite intention to vote, while just five per cent said they would not vote.

In relation to the preparedness of institutions for the 2016 elections, the army came tops, closely followed by the police, while the least prepared institution, according to respondents being the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC).

On vote buying, more than half of the respondents (68 per cent) thought the practice was wrong and punishable, with respondents pointing to the National Democratic Congress (NDC) as the worst culprit for vote buying according to 51 per cent of respondents and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) closely following at its heels with 32 per cent.

Voter education

A Research Fellow with CDD-Ghana, Dr Kojo Asante said pre-election survey reports provided information to help institutions engage in voter education.

He said the CDD was engaging with stakeholders to look at issues relating to specific findings of the study and under the remit of their institutions as stakeholders in the election.

He said engagements with institutions on the issues and further action would help in addressing some of the concerns expressed by Ghanaians in the report.