EC’s info on registered voters abroad lacks detail

A Deputy Communications Director of the opposition New Patriotic Party, John Boadu has called on the Electoral Commission (EC) to reveal the accurate details of the number of Ghanaian nationals who were registered to partake in the December 7 and 8 2012 general elections.

John Boadu, contributing to a panel discussion on PeaceFM, stated that the EC's response does not indicate the residential addresses of the voters and is also short on other vital information about the voters abroad in the register. He also touched on the accusations against the NPP that the petitioners had presented documents in relation to only the 4,709 polling stations whose results were initially challenged by the petitioners prior to the amendment of the petition.

To him, it is just a “deliberate distortion” of the facts stressing that the petitioners presented all the documents supporting its amended claims for Presidential results from 11,916 polling stations to be annulled.

"...the NDC simply wants to create the impression that the NPP has not fully honoured the request by the Supreme Court...it is just a ploy to throw dust into the eyes of Ghanaians," he added. He implored the EC to answer the request by the petitioners to furnish them with the documents on the electorates registered abroad since the EC’s information is inadequate.

The Electoral Commission (EC) on Thursday, February 14 complied with the Supreme Court order asking it to furnish the petitioners challenging the declaration of John Dramani Mahama as President in the December 7 and 8, 2012 general elections, with details of the registration exercise it carried out abroad.

The EC provided before the court 705 Ghanaians it said were registered in Ghanaian missions abroad though the Commission quoted earlier that over 241,000 people were registered.

The EC, in its answers to the petitioners, indicated that even though it had announced initial provisional figures of 13,917,366, after the registration of Ghanaians abroad, it arrived at 14,158,890 voters; a difference of 241,524 registered voters.

The petitioners, NPP’s 2012 Presidential candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia and Jake Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey, filed an application for 'interrogatories' to get the EC to furnish them with the documents on the people registered overseas.

In the document submitted to the Supreme Court, the EC put the number of service personnel returning from international peacekeeping duties at 2178 while the total number of diplomatic staff serving abroad as well as students on government scholarships and Ghanaians serving with international bodies were 705.

This brought the total number to 2,883, leaving the EC to fish for the missing 238,117.

A simple calculation on the list of voters registered abroad showed that the total number submitted by the EC was 2,883, whereas the commission in response to the petition quoted that over 241,000 people were registered abroad.