Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, lead witness of the petitioners in the ongoing Presidential Election Petition hearings at the Supreme Court, on Tuesday, dared counsel for the 3rd Respondents, Tsatsu Tsikata, to “get into” the analysis of the 11,138 polling stations whose results the petitioners are praying the court to annul and show one instance of double counting or padding.

Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia who was being cross examined by the Counsel for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) for the 9th day running debunked suggestions by the Counsel that the petitioners had deliberately padded and double counted polling stations to make up their numbers and urged the NDC lawyer not to hide behind mislabelling in the exhibits submitted, but to look at the analysis which shows no double counting if the counsel is not afraid of the truth.

Counsel for John Mahama, Tony Lithur, who earlier cross examined Dr. Bawumia for 4 days and Counsel Tsatsu Tsikata who is in his ninth day of cross examining the petitioner’s lead witness have constantly insisted that the petitioners deliberately padded and double counted to deceive the court and create the impression that there were indeed over 11,000 polling stations in contention.

However, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has consistently insisted to the counsels and the court that, that suggestion is far from reality and that, in the analysis of the petitioners, each polling station was used once and that even if a polling station reflects twice in the exhibits submitted, it would be purely a result of mislabeling and it would not affect the analysis.

Indeed on the second day of his cross examination by Counsel Tony Lithur, Dr. Bawumia offered to tender in the analysis of the updated 11,138 polling stations which the petitioners are challenging and which details the various irregularities which affected each of the polling stations in contention, the votes secured in those polling stations by the various candidates in the December 7th Elections, the serial numbers of the polling station pink sheets used, the polling station codes among other details.

The offer to tender in that analysis to prove to the respondents that there was not a single issue of double counting in the analysis was refused by the Counsel who rather kept on asking questions about mislabelling in the exhibits submitted.

Counsel Tsatsu Tsikata who has spent more than half of the Court’s sittings so far cross examining the witness, has also gone on the same tangent of pointing to mislabelling duplications in the exhibits submitted, which the petitioners have continued to insist has no effect on the analysis or the number of votes they are seeking to annul.

Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, also the 2nd petitioner has continued to challenge the Counsel to look at the analysis and point out any duplications or double counting in them.

It is interesting to note that before the substantive case even began, the petitioners had submitted to the court and the respondents, a list of 11,842 polling stations which were under contention detailing the scope of irregularities which have been identified on the face of the pink sheets from those stations.

The respondents after receiving the particulars claimed that there was double counting in them and that the list was not even up to 11,000, but till date, all three respondents have failed to substantiate those claims.

The lead witness during the cross examination even challenged the respondents earlier in his cross examination, to substantiate the claims of padding and double counting in the further and better particulars, but the respondents have so far failed to take up the challenge.