Regional Collation centres were conduits for rigging elections for Akufo-Addo - Apaak alleges

The Member of Parliament for Builsa South, Dr. Clement Abas Apaak is alleging that the Electoral Commission under the chairmanship of Jean Mensa purposely set up the regional collation centres as conduits for rigging the elections For President Akufo-Addo.

The legislator further alleges that these centres served as an avenue by which the rigging and fraud in the form of padding votes for the president and skimming or reducing those of former President John Dramani Mahama was through the Regional Collation Centres.

He said these never existed till the Jean Mensa lead EC came into being.

The MP was emphatic that all these processes were well orchestrated to help the incumbent win through fraudulent means.

“As known from previous elections, to ensure that every valid vote cast was counted, the total number of valid votes cast at each polling station is recorded and apportioned to the candidates at that polling centre. Then, the record of votes totalled at all polling stations in a constituency are accurately added up at the Constituency Collating Centre.’

He opined that “In the case of the Presidential Election, the votes obtained by each candidate are publicly announced at the Constituency Collating Centre, and then transmitted to the EC office in Accra to be vetted and confirmed, and then added to a cumulative running total to be certified and announced by the EC Chair as the Returning Officer for the Presidential election."

"This system has been tried and tested, so why did Jean Mensa’s EC introduce a new tier of collation for the 2020 Elections called Regional Collation of constituency declarations with summarised regional tabulations transmitted to the Accra strongroom.”

He added that Jean Mensa, the EC head office, deliberately, did not verify the results collated and sent by their electoral officers and party representatives from the various centres across the country.

He said: “We know these Regional Collation Centres transmitted summaries of Presidential votes to Accra, but Accra, suspiciously, never contacted the Constituency Collation Centres to verify. Neither did Accra, Jean Mensa, cross-check with the District Electoral Officers to confirm if what the amphorous Regional Collation Centres transmitted to her were accurate and same as tabulated at the Constituency Collation Centres."

"Essentially, the so-called strongroom in Accra did not receive information directly from each and every constituency in the country, as had been the practice in all previous elections. Instead, the strongroom was being supplied with secondary, unverified Regional summaries, which were largely padded in favour of Akufo-Addo."

"John Dramani Mahama and our great NDC party want a forensic audit of the results from the Constituency collation centres based on the primary source, the polling station pink sheets. We will not accept cooked-up and padded results from suspicious and amorphous Regional Collation Centres."

"Based on the primary source, pink sheets, from the constituency collation centres as aggregated from polling stations in each constituency, we know we won the 2020 the Presidential and Parliamentary elections."

"We will not accept cooked up results and a declaration based on “middle-man” Regional Collation Centres created as a conduit to subvert the will of the people,” he concluded.