Definition of over-voting: NPP and NDC jostle for Afari Gyan’s ‘blessing’

Lawyers of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP) have made a naked scramble, claiming that Afari-Gyan’s understanding of over-voting solidly supports their respective case in the election petition hearing.

On Multi TV’s and Joy Fm’s Top Story, NPP spokesperson Yaw Buaben Asamoah said Afari-Gyan used “Bawumia’s calculator” in court to prove that there was over-voting on the face of the pink sheet.

He said it was important to note Afari-Gyan’s remedy for over-voting demonstrated on the pink sheet. “It had to be annulled”, he quoted Afari-Gyan as saying.

He also capitalized on an event in court today to strengthen his claim.

Quarshie-Idun wanted to tender in evidence a polling station register for LA Primary School, Voligu in Shai Osu Doku in the Greater Accra.

The petitioners have placed in high esteem the number of voters verified as key to understanding their version of over-voting. Their definition is that over-voting is when ballot cast are in excess of those ballots issued to verified voters.

For the E.C to use any list of verified voters, therefore, backed their definition of over-voting, the NPP lawyer reasoned.

Victor Adawudu, spokesperson for the NDC legal team made his own case for the E.C blessing.

Over-voting since 1992 always meant an excess of ballot cast over the number in the polling station register, he said.

This is what Afari-Gyan referred to as “classical definition of over-voting” despite technological innovation that the use of a biometric register may imply.

The petitioners customized definition of over-voting in view of the use of the biometric machine could not be trusted, he conjectured.

This was because “if we are going to take line, hook and sinker that what the petitioners are saying is over-voting, then we are going to take blank spaces and zero also to mean over-voting”.

For now, Adawudu maintained, the respondents' definition has received Afari-Gyan’s ‘blessing’ and Asiedu Nketia’s confirmation.

The petitioners cannot “foist their definition of over-voting”.

He announced that the final backing needed was the ruling of the court on the matter to seal the case.