Data Privacy and Information Security specialist, Desmond Israel, has emphasised the importance of offline voting as a critical measure to counteract electoral interference in Ghana.

This comes after the Africa Center for Digital Transformation (ACDT) cautioned Ghana's Electoral Commission and other stakeholders in the upcoming general elections of a potential cyber-attack.

Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, Desmond Israel asserted that the decision to conduct voting offline significantly mitigates the risk of cyberattacks on Election Day.

“Security by obscurity, I think we have achieved that already by saying that we want to vote offline, and for me, that is 70% of our problem solved,” he said.

Read also: Election 2024: EC must prepare for possible cyber-attack on December 7 – ACDT

He said that while this approach addresses a significant portion of the security concerns, the country still faces considerable challenges from information manipulation in terms of misinformation, disinformation, fake news, and propaganda, as well as Ghana's overall cyberinfrastructure.

According to him, the nation’s cyber defenses, like other countries, remain vulnerable, particularly in terms of protection against state-sponsored cyber warfare.

“As a country, we have a long way to go in terms of our cyber infrastructure. I am talking about infrastructure that protects us from state-to-state warfare,” he noted, observing also that virtually no nation can boast immunity.

While Mr Israel praised the offline voting strategy in its potential to secure the integrity of the voting process, he maintained that we are not immune from data and information manipulation and their consequences for both the electorates and candidates.

He stressed that the protection and integrity of electoral candidates, and the choices the electorates are influenced to make as a result of what information is thrown at them, are equally crucial to the democratic process.

“They are part of the democracy; we should take them (candidates) for who they are, not for what somebody perceives them to be,” he said.

Mr Israel cautioned against the influence of misinformation and disinformation on voter perceptions, emphasising that citizens should make informed decisions based on genuine issues rather than fabricated narratives. He also pointed to a number of tools available for verifying the veracity of published information.

“If I don’t like Candidate A, I should not like him because of local issues that I perceive do not make him the right candidate—not because all of a sudden, I started receiving a feed that Candidate A is not the appropriate one because of some reason which really does not exist,” he explained, pointing to the potential danger of voters being misled to fall for technology-induced 'rented' crowds and approval rates.