#GhanaVotes today - early birds secure positions with stones, gallons and plastic chairs
To avoid joining long queues to cast their ballot, some voters have adopted ingenuous methods to vote early .
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Ahead of Today's polls, some voters in the Anya Sowutuom constituency in the Greater Accra region arrived at the polling station as early as 5pm yesterday.
Although voting starts at 7am Today and would end at 5pm, the voters who were seen sitting on benches and plastic chairs which they had brought from their houses claimed they wanted to be among the early birds.
While some were found sleeping on benches others had queued with stones, pavement bricks, gallons,plastic chairs and other objects to secure their positions in the queues.
Reason
In separate interviews, some of the voters said they had joined the queue last night because they would have to go to work tomorrow morning since the voting day was not a holiday.
While some said they just wanted to avoid spending their day in long queues at the polling station, others said they were in the queue for fun.
Some were seen busy taking pictures of themselves and others in the queue which they either posted on social media platforms or sent to their friends through same medium.
Confrontation
At the Odogono experimental basic School, at Awoshie, PlusFM radio station, at Santa Maria and Christ Mission School, near Santa Maria there were disagreements over positions in the queues leading to the removal of all stones and other objects in the queue, in the absence of their owners.
One of the voters, Mary Danso, a nursing mother, who was seen in a confrontation with other male voters said she had a hint while she was home that the gallon she had used to form a queue had been removed.
she told Graphic Online that she had gone home after mosquitoes started feasting on her and her baby which she was carrying at her back.
She said “the place was cold and l could not stay in the open space with my baby for the mosquitoes to have a field day on us. So l decided to go home but I ensured that l had secured my place in the queue before leaving only to be told by my brother about 30 minutes later that my gallon had been removed from the queue. I quickly came back to ensure that my object was put in the queue.”
Another voter, Ernest Tahoe, who had used a plastic chair to queue said “for the past three elections, l have always been the first person to vote here but this year l realised some people wanted to overtake me and l didn't want that to happen.”
He said since he had come to the polling station with his chair, he quickly suggested the idea of forming a queue to the other voters who had arrived at the venue before him but were conversing among themselves.
Mr Tahoe who is a factory handyman at the Light Industrial Area, near Kaneshie, in Accra said he was expected to report at work at 8:30am tomorrow
“I do not want to lose my franchise and so l have to make sure l cast my vote early to avoid being late for work.”
A resident near the Christ Mission school, Mr Donald A are you said “I am surprised people are already forming queues in anticipation to cast their votes early tomorrow morning. This shows the level of interest the lectures have in this year's elections. We hope the elections ends peacefully. We all want peace at the end of the day not who votes first or last. “
Writer’s email :[email protected]
