Duplicate serial numbers have no legal effect – NDC lawyer

Lawyer Victor Kojogah Adawudu, a member of the legal team of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) battling the petitioners in the hearing of the election petition has said “the serial number hasn’t got any legal effect”.

Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, star witness for the petitioners today reiterated the importance of duplicate serial numbers in determining “widespread” malpractices.

He said that the same serial number, but different results were a "clever" and “very sophisticated way of the malpractice.”

He added that the malpractices that went into the duplicate serial number forms were "too high to be ignored". He said the duplicates compromised the results of the elections.

Gloria Akuffo, lead counsel for petitioners also called this "a security breach".

The NDC lawyer, Adawudu has said during post-court interview that the fixation on serial numbers was not the right way of identifying a polling station.

It is possible in his estimation to have duplicate serial numbers for different polling station. He gave out his version of the proper way of identifying a polling station.

“If you want to identify a polling station, you use a polling station code number, presiding officer over there and a name of the place. So the serial number hasn’t got any legal effect,” he explained.

He said Tsatsu Tsikata took the witness through the process of printing the ballot papers in the presence of all the parties. Party agents witnessing the process, did not raise any issue of duplicate serial number.

His second reason for his position rested on the claim by the petitioners that the same serial number irregularity is one of largest category of allegations of malpractices involving over 2,000 polling stations.

According to him, this meant by proving that serial numbers had no legal effect, the NDC had managed to deal a big blow to the number of votes petitioners are seeking to annul.

“If they say it’s the same serial number, it is different polling stations and the results from those polling stations are also different. If you are saying that it’s a duplicate of serial numbers means we should have times two that goes to about 6,000 plus.

“The case is crumbling,” he assessed.