The Electoral Commissioner has challenged National Democratic Congress (NDC), 2020 presidential candidate, Mr. John Dramani Mahama to prove his claims that the presidential and parliamentary elections were not free, fair, and transparent.
According to EC, Former President Mahama has made several allegations against the EC and the 2020 elections and it is of the view that EC`s silence on these false allegations could have dire consequences as it could undermine citizens’ confidence in the country.
In the “Let the Citizens Know series”, the EC said the Former President has said the EC thumb printed 1million ballots in favor of the president. This is untrue. This is a grave matter that undermines the credibility of our electoral process and should not be ignored. We call on him to provide evidence to support his claim. This is not a matter to be ignored and we call on the Ghana Police Service to investigate this.”
“The Transparency of our process makes it impossible for this to happen. At the polling stations, before the start of the elections, the empty ballot boxes are opened and displayed in the presence of everyone, and thereafter they are sealed. There are serial numbers on the ballot papers for each region and constituency. This is made known to the Agents before the elections. Our ballot papers also have security features, so any trace of new material will be visible.”
The EC said “at the end of the poll, the ballots cast are crosschecked against the voters who were verified and issued the ballot papers. This ensures that over-voting is detected immediately. Nationwide, we had no issue with over-voting at all our 38,622 polling stations except in Savelugu in the parliamentary election where there was one and I repeat one over-voting. The transparency of our processes from the beginning to the end makes this impossible. Ballot Stuffing cannot be done-it is impossible. We call on the Former President in the interest of our democracy to provide evidence of the stuffing of the ballot boxes by the EC.”
“The Police should investigate this as a matter of urgency due to its potential to derail and undermine our democracy, and lead to a lack of confidence in our systems and processes. Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, the former President has alleged that the Military influenced the declaration and announcement of the results of the election. This is also false. It never happened. Nowhere did the Military influence the declaration and announcement of results. It is not true. The 2020 processes were widely participatory. The media, local and international observers all participated in the elections.”
“The results declared and announced at all the polling stations and collation centers were a true reflection of the will of the people. The Media and Observers also picked their data right from the ground directly from the 38,622 polling stations and the collation centers and the results were no different from what the EC declared. To buttress the fact that the results were a reflection of the will of the people, it is important to indicate that all the major networks-Peace FM, UTV, Adom FM/TV, Joy News/FM, Kessben, Sky, GBC, Atinka Media collated their results and it was the same as what the EC declared. These networks called the election for the President before the EC declared. The parallel voter tabulation employed by CODEO also confirmed the results declared by the EC. We call on the good people of Ghana to disregard this allegation of the military influencing the declaration and announcement of results as it is false and untrue. “
“In the interest of our democracy, we call on the Former President to provide evidence of where the influence by the Military occurred. We have also noted that the Former President has called the 2020 elections the worst elections. We refute his scoring. The good people of Ghana who experienced our processes are the best judges. Their testimonies on social media demonstrated that Ghanaians were highly satisfied. Additionally, the 2020 elections have been hailed locally and globally as highly transparent, fair, credible, and inclusive.”
“World over, scientific methods are used to measure the success or otherwise of elections. International and Local Observers who used scientific, internationally acceptable methods to measure the quality of elections have confirmed that the elections were transparent, credible, and highly successful. It is not a wonder that the internationally recognized EU International Observer Mission which has a track record of elections observation scored the 2020 elections 95%. Once again, we refute the ranking given by the former president and state that, based on scientific evidence the 2020 elections would go down as the best in the history of this country. It will be important to note the scientific tools used by the Former President to reach his conclusion. “
Source: Mybrytfmonline.com
