Moving to Ghana after a lifetime in the UK has brought its challenges and triumphs.  Elvina Quaison reports on her first experience of voting in Ghana and December’s drama-filled elections

I am impressed!

I was impressed when I registered to be a voter and had the whole process happen under a mango tree. This involved my picture being taken, my biometric details recorded and my voter’s card produced, laminated and handed over - all in under 3 minutes.

Then I was impressed again come voting day. I rose at 5 am and was out of my house by 5.30 as I didn’t want to spend all day in a queue.  Voting did start 30 minutes late, but after that it was smooth sailing (or voting).

There has been a lot of talk about the biometric machines and the impact they have had on the election process. The machine is a small hand-held device that scans each person’s bar code and then can verify that person by them placing a finger on the screen and having their fingerprint read.

Personally I think this is fabulous and, in practice, it generally worked well. However there were some disruptions as some machines malfunctioned, while others wore down and as batteries were not available to get them back into action, some machines could not read and therefore verify voters.

This led to the voting deadline having to be extended to the next day.  There were some rumblings but thankfully no overly problematic moments, and people have clearly taken the phrase ‘peaceful elections’ to heart. At my polling station, there was hardly a need for observers. The voters themselves had their eyes all over everything, demanding the ballot boxes were opened and held upside down at the beginning to make sure they were empty, keeping an eye on the queue to make sure nobody pushed in and letting anybody who so much as breathed near a motorbike know they had better not think about it (a motorbike ban was in place around polling stations).

The discussions in the queues were friendly and centred around the process as opposed to the parties. The main consideration for everyone was to make sure that they could vote.

Leading up to Election Day there had been the usual back-biting and accusations, but also debates and discussion over the important considerations, including education, foreign investment and the effective expenditure of resources. One particular vehicle that was particularly impressive and effective in keeping people’s interest and focus on what was important - being involved and exercising one’s right to vote - was Ghana Decides.

Ghana Decides (www.ghanadecides.com) is a non-partisan project that aimed to foster a better-informed electorate for free, fair and safe 2012 elections in Ghana using online social media tools, and it did this to remarkable effect. As mentioned in the twittersphere ‘First election in which I recall the youth being so engaged. It actually became uncool not to be involved and vote.’

They had a presence across the country, blogging and tweeting about any and everything to do with the Ghana elections, while also filming to capture this historic moment for posterity.

The official winner of the 2012 Ghana election was declared to be John Dramani Mahama and, barring the contestation of the NPP party, he will be heading his party, the NDC, to lead Ghana for the next four years.

However, what really made this election a real win for Ghana was the work and commitment of the Electoral Commission, the involvement and passion for democracy of the Ghanaian people and the seriousness and realisation of political leaders that they can take nothing for granted.  It was a lesson for Ghana’s future elections and for the other countries around the world who have been watching avidly.

 ‘I wish to thank the voters of Ghana who turned out in their numbers to exercise their right to vote’, said President-elect Mahama.

Ayekoo Ghana, Ayekoo Mahama! Let’s all stay committed to making Ghana great and strong!