The Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana has stated that the request of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) for a forensic audit of the voter’s register for election 2024 is premature.
For several weeks now, the NDC has raised concerns about some irregularities in the voter’s register, declaring a nationwide demonstration against the EC on September 17 following its refusal to accept an independent audit of the register.
The calls became louder after the EC admitted that some of its district officers had transferred votes illegally without recourse to the law, an anomaly the Commission says it has corrected and penalized the officers involved.
According to the EC, the purpose of the exhibition exercise was to correct any discrepancies in the provisional voter’s register before it was finalised for the December 7 general elections.
Briefing the press on the exhibition of the provisional voter’s register on Thursday, September 12, the Deputy Chairperson in charge of operations at the EC, Samuel Tettey said a forensic audit of the voter’s register is unnecessary at this stage.
He explained that the voter’s exhibition exercise in itself is an audit, stressing that the exhibition offers an avenue for the auditing of the register.
According to the EC, the NDC has been requested multiple times to provide data on the discrepancies they claim to have identified in the voters’ register, but the party has not done so.
The Commission stressed that it had assured the NDC during a previous meeting that any issues raised would be thoroughly investigated within a week, but without the data from the NDC, this investigation cannot proceed.
The EC expressed confidence that dialogue, rather than street demonstrations, would lead to the creation of a credible and robust voters’ register, and called on former President John Mahama to encourage his party to engage in discussions with the Commission.
