Bring your evidence – EC dares Mahama over 1m thumb-printed ballots allegation

The Electoral Commission (EC) has asked the Ghana Police Service to investigate former President John Dramani Mahama for accusing the elections management body of secretly thumb-printed some ballot papers which were used to pad the results in favour of the governing New Patriotic Party in the 2020 polls.

Deputy Chairman of the EC in charge of Corporate Affairs, Dr Eric Bossman Asare, told journalists at a press conference on Monday, 25 October 2021 that: “The former president has said that the EC thumb-printed one million ballot papers in favour of the President of the Republic. This is untrue”.

“This is not a matter that should be ignored, and we call on the Ghana Police Service to investigate it,” Dr Bossman Asare added.

“This is a great matter that undermines the credibility of the electoral process and should not be ignored. We call on him to provide evidence to support this claim,” he challenged.

According to Dr. Bossman, “the transparency of our process makes it totally impossible for this to happen”, explaining: “The ballots cast are cross-checked against the list of number of voters who were verified and issued with ballot papers”.

Also, he said: “Nationwide, we had no issue of over voting at all the 38,620 polling stations except in Savelugu in the parliamentary election where there was one over voting”.

“The police should investigate this as a matter of urgency due to its potential to derail and undermine our democracy and lead to a lack of confidence in our system and processes,” Dr Bossman Asare noted.

Two weeks ago, Mr Mahama said some one million extra ballot papers which were printed for the 2020 general elections, were thumb-printed in favour of the governing New Patriotic Party and stuffed during last year’s polls.

“More than one million extra ballot papers were printed, which the EC claimed happened by mistake but on the day of the elections, some of the more than one million extra ballot papers had already been secretly thumb-printed in favour of the NPP”, Mr Mahama alleged when he addressed the Divisional Chief of Prestea Himan, Nana Nteboah Prah, recently, as part of his Thank You tour of the Western Region.

“And, so, all these things dented the credibility of the polls and caused an embarrassment”, the 2020 flag bearer of the main opposition National Democratic Congress said.

He noted that it was important that everybody felt satisfied with the results of any election but fudging results stir up a lot of suspicion.

Mr Mahama also complained that the way the Supreme Court dealt with his election petition case was not fair.

Responding to a recent assertion by the Chair of the Electoral Commission, Mrs Jean Mensa, that the 2020 polls were the best-ever for Ghana, Mr Mahama said: “I heard her [Jean Mensa] say ‘it’s the best election Ghana has ever had’ and yet you run away from scrutiny at the Supreme Court”.

“So, how do you boast that ‘it’s the best election has ever had?’”

“If you believed it’s the best election Ghana had, then you should have mounted the witness box to be interrogated for everyone to ascertain that fact”.

---Classfmonline.com