The New Patriotic Party (NPP) believes there is a deliberate ploy by the Electoral Commission (EC) chaired by Charlotte Osei to manipulate the outcome of the December 7 general election, as the commission prints pink sheets for recording the results without serial numbers.
The electoral body has been embroiled in a myriad controversies ahead of the elections which is about three weeks away, including but not limited to legal issues concerning the disqualification of some 13 presidential aspirants, alleged manipulation of the proxy voters’ list and many more.
Latest was a press conference held by the NPP yesterday at which the party, among other issues, raised another concern about the printing of some pink sheets by Messrs Aero Vote without accompanying serial numbers as required by law.
The company won the $8.95 million contract to print the Statement of Poll and Declaration of Results Forms (Form Eight) and other results-related carbonized election forms.
The party has already complained about the omission of its initials – NPP – on the ballot papers of its parliamentary candidates in the Ashanti Region; and the latest revelation can only make the situation murkier.
Aero Vote began the printing of the Statement of Poll and the Declaration of Results forms, commonly referred to as Pink Sheets, yesterday.
But Martin Adjei Mensah Korsah, NPP Director of Elections, said the party was surprised to be told by Aero Vote that it (printing house) had been asked not to emboss serial numbers on the pink sheets when some NPP bigwigs visited the printing house to inspect the work that was being undertaking.
“The Electoral Reforms Committee Report recommended that Serial Numbers must be embossed and be unique to each polling station. This has been stated in the law governing the 2016 general election, CI 94.
“Since then, the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission has said publicly that Pink Sheets will have serial numbers. We are therefore, surprised to be told at the final hour of printing by those contracted to print that they have been instructed by the same Commission not to bother putting serial numbers on the Pink Sheets.
“This is not acceptable. It affects the integrity of the base document for the declaration of results,” Mr Korsah stated.
He said the party had written to Mrs Charlotte Osei requesting for an emergency meeting of the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) to discuss the issue and other matters, including seeking complete clarity on what happens, in the event of over-voting.
Meanwhile, he has indicated that the contract for the printing of the Pink Sheets makes provisions for the printing of 3,000 extra forms.
The idea behind this, he said, was for each constituency to have 10 extra forms and that “those 3,000 will naturally not have the Polling Station Name and Polling Station Code on them.”
But without serial numbers on them as well, we think this leaves them open to manipulation,” he concluded.
His reason was grounded on pages 48 and 49 of the Public Elections Regulations, 2016 (CI 94) in the Schedules part which has a sample of the exact format that the law says Form Eight, or the Pink Sheet for both parliamentary and presidential results should take.
That aside, Mr Martin Korsah indicated that the Electoral Reforms Committee Report also recommended that serial numbers must be embossed and be unique to each polling station as have been stated in the law governing the 2016 general elections, not to talk about pronouncements by the EC Chairman to that effect.
According to the NPP’s Director of Elections, “This is not acceptable because it affects the integrity of the base document for the declaration of results.”
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(Via: NewsGhana)
