Chairman of the Electoral Commission Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan has assured that adequate checks and balances have been put in place to prevent double registrations during the upcoming biometric registration exercise. Speaking at a seminar on the biometric exercise organized by the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG) in Accra today, the EC boss said although the process will be costly and complicated, the EC is prepared for the task ahead. He said the biometric registration system encompasses a central search system which will expose any person or group of persons guilty of multiple registration. Dr Afari-Gyan also noted that concerns about verification of the new voting system had been taken up by the Commission. On his part, the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission of Nigeria, (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, who shared the Nigerian experience, urged his Ghanaian colleagues to intensify voter education ahead of the exercise for better results. “Everything should be explained so that it is well understood, so that others will also be able to explain to others about what is being done so that there is no room for rumours and there is transparency in the way the processes are done,” he stated. Prof Jega stressed the need for constant testing of the system to pre-empt challenges and find solutions well in advance to those challenges. “In Nigeria regrettably we did not have the time to do a lot of piloting and we suffered from that in the field in terms of the mistakes that we made and the cost of having to correct those mistakes,” he added. The mass biometric registration exercise begins in barely two weeks but there is barely any visibility of public sensitization on the process involved. This has raised concerns about the possibility of low patronage. Madam Augustine Akumanyi of the National Commission for Civic Education, told Joy News some voter education had started in the hinterlands. She said there were some delays because the NCCE was waiting for some technical data from the EC.