EC cannot rig Election 2024 in favour of any political party- Commission

The Electoral Commission (EC),has stated that it will not be able to rig the results of the 2024 General Elections to the advantage of any political party.

Elections are won or lost at the polls, according to the Commission, and “not at the EC’s headquarters.”

Speaking at a press conference in Accra on Friday, Mr. Samuel Tettey, the Deputy EC Chair in charge of Operations, stated that the Commission is unable to predict election results due to the transparency nature of the electoral processes, from registration to results collation and declaration.

At a press conference on Thursday in Accra, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) made accusations, to which the Commission was reacting.

According to Mr. Tettey, there is no way for the Commission to manipulate the results of the election to benefit any one party or candidate.

He went ahead to reveal that, political parties were willing to set up procedures to compile their data from the more than 38,000 voting places and compare it with the Commission’s data after the polls closed.

“…if a political party has participated in all the above processes and has been able to collate results from all the 38,622 polling stations, their results should match the final results that the Electoral Commission would eventually declare,” Mr Tettey said.

“Elections are won or lost at the polling station, and not at the Head Office of the Electoral Commission. Parties should train their Agents well to observe the process and not blame the EC for the outcome of the elections,” he added.

In response to queries regarding the hiring of Returning and Deputy Returning Officers for the current voter registration exercise, the Commission declared that the procedure was transparent, equitable, and open.

After the job postings was advertised, Mr. Tettey stated that about 20,561 people applied. He also mentioned that a committee within the company narrowed down the pool of candidates.

“…all successful applicants at the interview have no less than 8 years working experience with the Commission as Temporary Elections Officials,” he said.

During Regional IPAC (RIPAC) and District IPAC (DIPAC) meetings, Mr. Tetteh stated that the list of registration officials was distributed to all political parties “several days before the commencement of the registration exercise.”

The Electoral Commission recognized that there had been difficulties during the first two days of the registration process, but stated that as of the third day, those difficulties had been overcome. A total of 391, 111 new voters had been added to the electoral record as of the ninth day of the registration exercise ahead of the elections, according to the Commission.

In response to additional questions, Mr. Tettey stated that the EC had no part in preventing residents of Santrokofi, Apkafu, Lolobi, and Lipke (SALL) / Guan District from exercising their right to vote in the 2020 parliamentary elections.

“Given that the Legislative Instrument that created the Guan District came into force on 9th November 2020, the same day Parliament went on recess, and with Parliament only returning from recess on 14th December 2020 after the general elections, the Constitutional Instrument creating the Guan Constituency could not be laid before Parliament, and in time for it to mature into law before the parliamentary election on 7th December 2020,” the Commission explained.