The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has accused the Electoral Commission of printing excess ballot papers ahead of the elections.
In agreement with political parties, the EC is required to print an extra 5 per cent of the ballot sheets for each polling station to deal with cases of spoilt ballots.
However, according to the NDC, the EC is printing ballot papers exceeding more than 5 per cent which, according to them, will affect the transparency of the elections.
“By convention and practice, the EC prints an extra 5 per cent of the total registered papers to cater for spoilt ballots at each polling station. What is surprising this time around is that the EC is printing an additional 5 per cent of the total registered voter per a constituency with padding* in the total number of ballot papers to be printed. What is translated into is that more ballot papers are being printed in excess of the 5 per cent extra ballot papers required for each polling station,” the NDC Campaign Manager, Professor Joshua Alabi stated.
He added,
“From the Ballot Statistics received from the Printing Houses as coming from the EC, we have analysed the figures from 13 regions and observed that there is an excess of over 150,000 ballot papers being printed beyond the extra 5% required.”
The NDC further accused Assembly Press, contracted to print the ballot papers, of secretly printing additional ballot papers in another location on the blind side of party agents monitoring the process.
“Just last night, the NDC found out that the Assembly Press is printing additional ballot papers in another location at the premises of the agency on the blind side of the political parties,” the NDC stated.
The opposition party also noted another discrepancy by the EC sighting conflict of interest influenced by the governing NPP.
They stated,
“the NDC is completely appalled to the irregularity, particularly, as the MD of Assembly Press (who is an appointee of the President) was an Aspirant who contested in the NPP 2020 parliamentary primaries in the Nkawkaw Constituency and the Convener of the Let My Vote Count Alliance (LMVCA)- we all know that it’s a pressure group of the NPP- and he is the MD of the Assembly Press here,” the NDC stated.
Source: Ghanaweb