Some ballot Papers with
duplicate serial numbers were detected during the sorting of electoral
materials by Political parties and the Electoral Commission officials in Koforidua
on Sunday, November 22, 2020.
The errata were detected during
sorting of Presidential and Parliamentary ballot papers for Akuapem South
Constituency in the Eastern Region.
According to Prince Etormam the Akuapem South
Constituency Secretary of the NDC:
“For the ballot papers in the presidential booklets, we noticed that the one which is in tens – instead of 142 pieces of the booklets we had 141 booklets which means there is a shortage by one. On the other hand, 50 of the booklets had duplicate serial numbers on the ballot papers. With the Parliamentary, there was shortage of one booklet with two duplicate booklets with same serial numbers on ballot papers, ”
EC officials refused to speak to
the issue on record but explained briefly that, the 250 ballot papers in 25
booklets with duplicate serial numbers which the parties have agreed to be put
aside will not affect the number of ballot papers needed in the Constituency
since they were additional ballot papers.
After the tedious exercise, the
Director of elections for the NDC in Eastern Region Baba Jamal Konney said, the
party will ensure that the duplicate ballot papers are either burnt or kept in
Police custody before the electoral materials are finally dispatched to the
constituency so that it does not make it way to the constituency to create
problems.
Apart from this anomaly, Baba
Jamal commended the Electoral Commission for the transparent manner of the
exercise.
“We are done with sorting, all the Constituency booklets have been kept at the Police armoury at the Police Headquarters in Koforidua. Every political party has put its seal on the bags, on November 30th we will come and pick the special voting booklets and conduct the Special Voting then afterwards we come for the main booklets and check whether the seals and everything is okay. I think the regional Electoral Commission Director and her deputies are doing a good job, all the Constituency Electoral Officers are also doing their best to ensure fairness, we praying and hope that the way they have started will continue till the last day”.
The Eastern Regional Secretary of the ruling New Patriotic
Party, NPP, Jeff Konadu was reluctant to comment on the process when approached
twice.
The sorting exercise was equally monitored by BNI, Police and
Election Observers from the European Union(EU).
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