The Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC) has reacted to some of the claims of illegal voter transfers in the Provisional Voter Register for the pending December 7, 2024, general election, being led by the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
Speaking on a panel discussion on JoyNews on Tuesday, September 10, 2024, the Director of Electoral Services at the EC, Benjamin Bano-Bioh, said that the assertions that there have been illegal vote transfers in the register are completely false.
He explained that the transfers the NDC is referring to as illegal are transfers that had been done since 2020 and were deliberately included in the voter register.
“Please, there is nothing like 15,000 illegal transfers. The transfer list that was given to them was composed of transfers that we had done since 2020 when we compiled the register at first. So, it involved transfers made in 2020, transfers in 2023, and transfers made in 2024. These are people who have transferred to the various polling stations. They are not ghosts; they are not bloated. They are in the register. Yet, we have a list called transfer list and this time around we captured since the register was made, that is 2020.
“They (the NDC) raised that issue and we told them that it involved transfers since 2020. And so, when you take that of 2020 from it and then 2023 from it, you come to get the actual figure. We told them that we have it and we even told them that if you deduct the two transfers - 2020, and 2023, you will get the same figure as they are talking about. So, it’s not a matter of it being bloated? It’s not bloated,” he explained.
The EC elections director further explained that the inclusion of the previous transfers was deliberate and was done to enable the commission to track the movement of voters.
He added that the EC has explained the issues to the NDC and would be giving them the voter transfer list for 2024.
“Initially, we wanted to track the movement of all the voters. That was why we did that and we decided to give it to them. But now they say they want the 2024. We have gotten that. And so, in our last meeting, we told them that that would be ready for them to see.
“We printed it out. We knew that the transfer list given was from 2020 up to the current year. As I indicated, we wanted to track the movement of all voters since 2020, and so we did that. Transferred,” he explained.
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The Deputy Director of Elections and IT of the NDC, Dr Rashid Tanko-Computer, who was one of the co-panelists on the show, did not buy the explanation given by the EC elections director.
He maintained his party’s position that there have been illegal voter transfers in the voter register.
He explained that the voter transfer list given by the EC does not indicate the transfers made since 2020 and a number of them cannot be tracked and are also not on the absentee voter list as required by law.
The NDC has claimed that it has so far found the following irregularities in the voter transfer list:
1. 243,540 previous transfers illegally added to 2024 transfers, including repetition of illegally transferred names.
2. 15,000+ unidentifiable voter transfer paths (due to fake registration of voters???) Where were they originally registered?
3. 3,957 voters in the 2023 register but deleted from the 2024 Provisional Register due to transfer.
4. 2,094 voters transferred to different polling stations but not found in the Absent Voter List as required by law.
5. Corrupt files not showing names and photos of the registered voters which it fears would happen on election day.
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