The Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Jean Mensah has justified the exclusion of Indelible Ink from the voting process.

The EC  announced that there would be no need for indelible ink in the upcoming district-level election and subsequent polls.

Indelible Ink is a semi-permanent dye applied to voters’ fingerprints to indicate who has exercised their franchise and prevents double voting.

Addressing the media in a press conference yesterday ahead of the District Assembly elections, she said “The question is when we were not doing biometric, we were basically using your face to  say this picture looks like you.”

According to her, the biometric technology makes it difficult for a person who has verified to cast his vote to come the second time.

Against this backdrop, she said, “so there is no need for indelible ink.”

She further added, “Once you have verified, it goes into the system and you cannot come back the second time.”

“So you can try it if you wish at this election, of course, it would be deemed as an electoral offence,” she said.

According to her, because of biometrics “your facial features are or your fingerprint is recognised and verified. Therefore there is no need for indelible ink which had been in place since the beginning of 2012 when we were not using biometric.”

By Edem Mensah-Tsotorme