Speaking at a media event to address the issue on Thursday, September 24, 2020, John Mahama said as an interested party in the December elections the NDC is of the view that the irregularities point to alarming warning signs that the upcoming elections on December 7 will not be free and fair.
According to Mr Mahama, the worst affected constituency with regards to serious irregularities on the recently-compiled voters register is Binduri in the Upper East Region where at least 7,605 names have disappeared.
This is followed by Ashaiman, where Mr Mahama claimed 7,000 names could not be found in the register even after the EC had updated it.
Earlier, Member of Parliament for the constituency, Ernest Norgbey, claimed that 21,000 names including his had been omitted from his constituency’s register.
John Dramani Mahama and his running mate, Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang cut short their campaign tours at different parts of the country to hold the press conference at the party’s headquarters in Accra on Thursday, September 24, 2020.
“There are also instances in which the gender, name and registration centre of voters have been transposed. As an interested party in the December elections we want to state and strongly that these alarming warning signs do not bode well for a free and fair election,” Mr Mahama stated.
Apart from the missing names, Mr Mahama also pointed at the duplication of voter ID numbers and cited the Krowor Constituency where 2,453 people have been affected in eight centres.
A similar challenge is also in the Central Region, where he said his running mate, Prof Naana Jane Opoku-Agyeman was also affected.
He also accused the EC of mysteriously adding 907 names to the Asawase register.
While he admitted that the omission of names after the compilation of a new register was not new, his worry was that “the magnitude of the recorded anomalies in this voters’ exhibition are unusual and unprecedented.”
“Of what use is a democracy if technicalities will be deployed to steal the mandate of the people? Sovereign power emanates from the people it must be protected and jealously guarded at all times,” he said.
He said the irregularities give the NDC a genuine cause for concern about the credibility of the register and the integrity of the electoral process.
“This is particularly so given the limited amount of time we have for the resolution of these major challenges before we go into the December elections,” he explained.
The Electoral Commission has acknowledged the concerns, describing them as minor errors that it was correcting.
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