10 situation rooms to be set up to monitor 2016 elections

Some civil society groups in the country have joined forces to establish 10 election situation rooms in the regions to gather and disseminate data on this year’s December 7 general elections to the public.

About 5,600 observers of these civil society groups are expected to be deployed on the Election Day to the various polling centres across the 275 constituencies to gather the necessary information and data to feed the situation rooms in each region.

Spearheaded by Civic Forum Initiative (CFI) in partnership with Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG) and Coalition Of Domestic Elections Observers (CODEO), the Civil Society Elections Situation Rooms will be launched by the end of the month.

The elections situation rooms will focus on data regarding the voting processes, voter turnouts, results from polling stations and collation centres, as well as other incidents that may occur at the various polling centres.

Addressing a workshop on the initiative in Accra Thursday, Chairman of the CFI, (Rtd) Major General Nii Carl Coleman said that the election situation room would serve as hubs for disseminating credible information to the public on election day.

“It is an operational room to monitor and gather information as events roll out before, during and after the December 7 elections,” he said.

He said his CFI and IDEG would deploy about 1,100 observers while CODEO will also deploy a total of 4,500 observers to various polling stations across the country.

“We are going to launch situation rooms to monitor the upcoming elections, and therefore will need people at the various polling stations who understand the rules and regulations concerning the elections” he added.