Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, has announced that Parliament will soon roll out a pilot phase for an electronic voting (e-voting) system to streamline decision-making in the House.
According to him, the initiative is aimed at reducing the physical struggles and procedural challenges often witnessed during high-stakes votes on the floor.
Speaking on February 12, the Speaker first highlighted infrastructural constraints facing Parliament.
“We have been crying, and I hope you’ll support us in that, that at least we should be liberated from being tenants of the state house to having our own premises as an arm of government. There are a lot of infrastructural limitations.”
He admitted that the current system has not made decision-making easy.
“Even when we’re about to take a decision, you can’t take a decision when there’s no consensus with the voting and that you just have to rely on the Human Resources, and you see the challenges.”
The Speaker then disclosed the plans to introduce a digital voting platform to address the situation.
“Now we’re trying to upload an IT where we can have e-voting in the house, so we’re starting the pilot and we believe that it will ease up all the struggles that you see usually when it comes to decisions taken on the floor of the house.”
The proposed e-voting system is expected to modernise parliamentary processes and improve efficiency in recording and declaring votes once fully implemented.
