‘EC is not ready to accept an audit from a third party’ – Dr. Bossman Asare

Dr. Bossman Asare, the Deputy Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, has explained why the Commission is strongly opposed to demands for a forensic audit of the voters' register.

Speaking on JoyNews’ Newsfile on Saturday, September 28, 2024, Dr. Asare clarified that the electoral body hasn’t discovered any issues with the register, contrary to claims made by some political parties, particularly the NDC.

He added that the EC is not prepared to accept an audit from a third party.

“We are not losing anything but let me make it clear, the audit is in the law and what the commission is saying is that when we exhaust it, we give the registers to the parties and if they genuinely have concerns, we can discuss that. As we speak now, the EC is not prepared to accede to a third party coming to audit our system when we know clearly that there is no problem,” he said.

The Electoral Commission, in a statement on September 26, 2024, rejected calls from the National Democratic Congress, as well as various institutions and personalities, for an external forensic audit of the voters' register ahead of the upcoming December polls.

According to the EC, calls for the audit are not justified because they believe that legal and administrative processes established to clean the PVR have not been fully exhausted.

It however, assured the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the general public that the Commission will re-exhibit the corrected Provisional Voters Register (PVR) online before the final register is printed for the 2024 elections.

“Whilst the Commission is not opposed to undertaking another physical exhibition of the corrected PVR in the entire 40,000 plus exhibition centers, given the amount of time it takes to print and distribute the PVR (some four weeks), it will not be feasible to achieve this due to the limited time to the general election.

"The Commission intends to implement an online exhibition of the PVR at no cost to registered voters. Voters will be able to report on anomalies with their details within a time frame to be made available to the public. The Voters' Register will be displayed online until Election Day,” part of the statement reads.

MAG/MA