with

Dr. Franklin Oduro
Head of Research and Programs and Deputy Director,
Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana)

Richard Klein
Senior Advisor, Elections and Political Processes, NDI

Chris Doten
Program Manager, Information and Communication Technology, NDI

moderated by

Chris Fomunyoh
Senior Associate and Director for Central and West Africa, NDI

Thursday, Jan. 10, 1:30 – 3 p.m.

National Democratic Institute
455 Massachusetts Ave., NW, 8th Floor
Washington, D.C.

On Dec. 7, Ghanaians went to the polls to elect a president and 275 members of parliament. With a turnout of nearly 80 percent, incumbent President John Dramani Mahama of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) won with 50.7 percent of the vote against main challenger Nana Akufo-Addo of the National People's Party (NPP), who garnered 47.74 percent. Credible domestic and international observation groups said that while there were some challenges, the overall conduct of the election met national, regional and international standards. The NPP has alleged that there were irregularities in the voting and counting processes and has petitioned the nation's Supreme Court to overturn the result of the presidential race.

The Coalition for Domestic Election Observers (CODEO), Ghana's largest independent, nonpartisan domestic election observation coalition, deployed approximately 4,500 observers to polling stations in all 275 constituencies across the country. With technical assistance from NDI, CODEO undertook a parallel vote tabulation (PVT) to provide Ghanaians with systematic, comprehensive information on the conduct of the polls as well as to verify independently the results of the presidential election.

Panelists will examine the 2012 Ghana elections and discuss CODEO's PVT initiative and innovative ways in which information communication technologies, such as social media, radio, and sophisticated maps, were used to communicate crucial information on the election process to the public.

Click here to RSVP. [2]