The Electoral Commission (EC) is still considering employing the biometric/E-voting form of registering voters for the 2012 election. Speaking to the Times in an interview in Accra on Tuesday, Mr. Christian Owusu-Parry, Public Relations Officer of the Commission, said the use of biometric registration to beat fraudsters who attempt to exploit the voting exercise to their advantage is a key mechanism. He said even though the cost involved in employing the system would be quite substantial, the benefits would override the cost. Mr. Parry said even though no firm date has been set to put the system in place, he was hopeful that something would have been done by 2011, when a completely new voter registration exercise would be undertaken to derive a new register for the 2012 general election. "Ghana is lagging behind in the use of technologies in the electoral process," he said, adding that any new improvements in the system would have to include the best technologies, including, biometric systems.” He pointed out that a number of Ghanaians have either hinted at or strongly advocated the use of biometric/E-voting machines to become a part of Ghana's elections, even as early as 2012. Mr. Parry noted that a lot of people, especially, minors, who were not qualified to vote during the last election, were influenced by politicians to do so. "If you have a national population of 22million and half of that figure is on the voters list, then there is a strong indication that something is definitely wrong. That is the main reason why we want to have fresh voters register before the 2012 election. The EC will initiate systematic procedures to use the biometric mechanism for capturing data in preparation of the next voters register. "This is very necessary to deal authoritatively with practices of multiple voting and impersonation that tend to undermine public confidence in declared election results. He stressed that now that national identification cards were being issued, the EC would not hesitate to call for anybody's card if there is doubt about a person's age. Source: Ghanaian Times/Ghana