EC padded votes to favour Akufo-Addo - NDC

The opposition National Democratic Congress has accused the Electoral Commission of padding votes in various polling stations to help President Akufo-Addo win the 2020 polls.

According to the party, several polling stations recorded significant ballot calculation errors which favoured the incumbent in the polls.

At a press briefing in Accra Thursday, the National Communications Officer of the party, Sammy Gyamfi, showed images of some pink sheets from the Ashanti region which captured the supposed errors identified by the party.

"Ladies and gentlemen these are just a few of the pink sheets we are showing you and there are many of them available which we are willing to show you any day. These figures from some areas in the Ashanti region and you can see the obvious padding of votes which saw candidate Akufo-Addo winning all and candidate Mahama having deductions in votes. And there are many of such padding across the country,” he claimed.

Meanwhile, the Assembly Press in Accra has gazetted the 2020 Presidential election results declared by Mrs. Jean Mensa, the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), who is also the Returning Officer of the presidential election.

This gives legal backing to the results as declared by the EC Chairperson and paves way for any person or group of persons interested in contesting it to do so at the law court, a source at the EC told the Ghana News Agency on Tuesday.

The Commission was mandated by Constitutional Instrument (CI) 127, Regulation 44, Sub-regulation 11, to gazette the results, saying; “Without that, any case from a person or a group about the election results sent to court will be thrown away.”

"An instrument, which is executed under the hand of the Chairman of the Commission and under the seal of the Commission; and states that the person named in the Instrument was declared elected as the President of Ghana at the election, is prima facie evidence that the person named was elected.”

The CI stated that the instrument referred to in sub-regulation 11 shall be published in the Gazette.

The source said any person or group of persons interested in contesting the results had up to December 30, to do so.

“It is a public notice that states that there had been elections and of the 12 candidates that contested, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has been duly elected as the President.”

“The process is just like a newly wedded lady who wants to change her maiden name to her husband’s surname. You go to the Assembly press and pay a fee for it to be published,” the source said.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party, was elected the Eighth President of Ghana’s Fourth Republic.

Jean Mensa declared Mr Akufo-Addo President-Elect on Wednesday, December 09, 2020.