Dr. Rashid Tanko-Computer, the Deputy Director of Elections and IT for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), has said his party deserves a pat on the shoulder for helping save the democracy of the country.
He says if it wasn’t for the vigilance of the NDC over the activities of the Electoral Commission (EC), the errors recorded in the voters’ register which the EC has admitted would have gone unnoticed.
According to Dr. Computer, although a section of the public thought they were making noise out of nothing, the admission by the Electoral Commission has proven everything they asserted.
The comments follow an allegation made by the opposition NDC in the Ajumako Enyan Essiam constituency that some voters were transferred from their place of voting without their knowledge, a development it said was a ploy by the EC to deliberately disenfranchise some people.
The Commission, at a press conference Monday, September 02, 2024, admitted that indeed there were some infractions at certain areas and measures have been put in place to correct and prevent them from reoccurring.
“Preliminary investigations by the Commission have revealed that voter transfers were indeed effected for Thirty-Eight (38) individuals using the credentials of an Electoral Commission Official. The records of those transfers are captured in the Voter Management System’s (VMS) audit logs. A look at the verification done during the transfer process shows that photos of the voters from their Voter ID Cards were used for facial verification and to effect the transfer,” the Deputy Chairman of the EC in charge of Corporate Services, Dr Eric Bossman Asare, told the press.
Speaking with Alfred Ocansey on Ghana Tonight Monday, September 02, 2024, he stated that “in fact Ghanaians must congratulate the NDC for having been a check on the Electoral Commission all this while. Our posture has gone a long way to defend the democracy that we have in Ghana currently.
“When we said this people thought we were joking and now they’ve admitted to all that we have stated previously concerning the discrepancies in the register.”
The EC, however, denied allegations that it deliberately stocked the register with some names to aid rigging of the polls.
“It is also absolutely untrue that the Commission has added names to the Voters Register in a bid to rig the elections for a particular party. Those allegations are without merit and should be disregarded by the Public. The EC has no intention of bloating the register to give any political party advantage over the other,” Dr. Asare added.
But in reaction, Dr. Computer stated that the EC is not appreciating the immensity of the issue, the reason it is wants to treat the anomaly lightly.
“What Dr. Bossman was saying, completely, he seems not to understand the enormity of the problems on the ground. The issue about transfers is already stated in regulation 22(1) of C.I.127 which talks about how transfers are done. You can’t do transfer in absentia, it’s not possible,” he stated.
Meanwhile, the EC says it has launched investigations into the errors and to also check if such anomalies were replicated in other areas.
Full text: Address by Dep. Chair of EC on Voters’ Register Exhibition on Sept 2
