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General News of Thursday, 23 May 2013

Source: radioxyzonline

There was never over-voting in the 2012 elections – Asiedu Nketia

The General Secretary of the governing National Democratic Congress, Mr. Johnson Asiedu Nketia, has denied allegations that there was over-voting at some polling stations in the country during the 2012 general elections.

“My Lords, I can state that there was nowhere in all the 26,000 polling stations where over-voting took place”, he told the Supreme Court on Thursday May 23, 2013 when he was led in his evidence-in-chief by Lead Counsel for the Third Respondent, NDC.

Mr. Asiedu Nketia explained that: “My Lord, I’m saying this because we have come to know over-voting to mean an occurrence where the number of votes found in the ballot box exceeds the number of people who are entitled to vote at that polling station; so that clearly is my understanding of over-voting, and I do not have any indication of this happening in any of the 26,002 polling stations which were involved in the 2012 elections”.

The Petitioners’ key Witness, Dr. Bawumia, in his evidence-in-chief insisted there was over-voting because ballots tallied at the end of the voting process exceeded the number of ballots issued at certain polling stations.

“…That was my first time of hearing over-voting being defined that way in all my 34 years of experience in elections in this country,” Mr. Asiedu Nketia sniggered.

He also described as “clerical errors”, the failure to enter numbers in the columns provided on the pink sheets which are meant to indicate the number of ballots issued.

The petitioners had argued that the failure to record the number of ballots issued was one of the several mechanisms used by the NDC and the Electoral Commission to rig the elections.

Mr. Asiedu Nketia said: “My Lord, I think that if no papers were issued, then the elections couldn’t have taken place at all, so I think that, that must be a clerical error”.

Over-voting is one of several categories of electoral malpractices alleged by the three Petitioners in their election results challenge.

Voting without biometric verification, duplicate serial numbers on ballot papers and unsigned electoral records (pink sheets) are amongst a raft of alleged violations, which form the bases for which the main opposition New Patriotic Party’s 2012 Presidential Candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo; his running mate Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, and the party’s National Chairman, Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, are challenging the election results in Court.

As far as voting without biometric verification is concerned, Mr. Asiedu Nketia told the Court that: “My Lord I haven’t seen any evidence of voters having voted without prior biometric verification anywhere because there is no single complaint anywhere in all the pink sheets that we have perused and analysed”.

He said the Second Respondent, Electoral Commission, took stock of about 400 polling stations across the country where the biometric verification machines failed on the day of voting, December 7, 2012 and based on a review in that regard, voting continued on December 8 with fully functional biometric verification equipment.

Mr. Asiedu Nketia, therefore, questioned the basis of the allegation by the Petitioners.

He also said he disagreed with the Petitioners’ claim that President John Mahama, the first Respondent, ordered the Electoral Commission to allow voters to cast their ballot without being verified by the biometric equipment.

He described the President’s intervention as a “legitimate appeal” rather than a command to the Second Respondent to flout the law as averred by the Petitioners.

Concerning the Petitioners’ allegation of the use of ballot papers with duplicate serial numbers to rigged the elections were concerned, Mr. Asiedu Nketia said duplication, triplication or multiplication of serial numbers were insignificant to the results of the election.