Addison discredits Afari-Gyan on special voting claims

Lead Counsel for the petitioners in the ongoing presidential election petition on Monday confronted and in the process suggested that Dr. Afari-Gyan, Chairman of the Electoral Commission, had not been truthful to the court on claims he made on Thursday that the occurrence of duplicate polling station codes was because some of the polling stations were used for special voting.

It would be recalled that, last Thursday, Counsel Philip Addison produced a list of polling station pink sheets which showed that the same polling station codes had been used for different polling station results.

In cross-examining Dr. Afari-Gyan on them, the Electoral Commission boss informed the court, on almost every single pair, that it was because one of the pair of pink sheets was a record of the results for the special voting as the polling stations had also been used for special voting, though he could not point out to the court which specific pink sheets were those for special voting.

Though Counsel Philip Addison suggested that the explanation provided by Dr. Afari-Gyan could not stand, as some of the polling stations had different names and that special voting did not require the use of pink sheets, Dr. Afari-Gyan stood his grounds that the phenomenon of duplicate polling station codes occurred as a result of special voting.

On continuation of his cross-examination of the Chairman of the Electoral Commission on Monday, however, Philip Addison referred Dr. Afari-Gyan to the list of the duplicate polling station codes and the answers Dr. Afari-Gyan had given last Thursday.

Counsel Addison sought to know if Dr. Afari-Gyan had cross-checked the information he had given the court on Thursday and if he could now specify which particular polling stations were those used for special voting. Dr. Afari-Gyan indicated that he hadn’t checked, but agreed that certainly special voting did occur in the polling stations listed.

At this juncture, Counsel Philip Addison informed the witness that the petitioners had done their checks and began going through the list and confronting Dr. Afari-Gyan on the claims he had made to the court.

Counsel Addison informed Dr. Afari-Gyan that the polling stations indicated on numbers 5 and 6 of the list, D/A Primary Atintan and D/A Primary School with the same polling station code – B153103 were in remote villages in the Assin North, and that no special voting occurred in any of the two polling stations. He further indicated that the special voting in the Assin North constituency was held at the Methodist Primary School, Assin Bereku.

Dr. Afari-Gyan, however, could not stand by his position and noted that the information provided by Counsel Addison could be the case, but that he had not said that all the polling stations had been used for special voting.