If you and I were not there, then we should trust the EC’s declaration – Tony Lithur

Counsel for the first respondent in the election petition hearing has discounted claims by the petitioners that the pink sheets are the primary election record.

Mr. Tony Lithur said to accept the argument of the petitioners and disregard the fact that their polling agents did not raise any questions of irregularities on voting day, would be creating serious problems for managers of the country's elections.

He insisted that what happened at the polling station on voting day and the observation of polling station agents were critical and that Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia's mantra that "You and I were not there," was sufficient grounds to reject the petitioners' attempt to rely on pink sheets to demand nullification of results.

"If the petitioners' view is that the evidence is on the face of the pink sheets and 'you and I were not there', then there is no need for any party to appoint agents" to monitor the elections and whatever the EC says must be accepted as a true reflection of what transpired at the polls, Mr Lithur argued.

He said this as part of his oral submission of the last day allotted to counsels for all parties to make their case in an election petition, which is challenging the declaration of John Mahama as winner of the 2012 presidential polls.

The petitioners are calling for a massive annulment of over 3 million votes, which they say were illegally garnered by the winner.

They insist that the primary source on which they are basing their petition is the pink sheets, which is used to record the results at the polling station after voting day.

The petitioners have been insisting during the 47 day hearing that annulment can be made just using the pink sheets as evidence of massive irregularities.

In fact, their witness Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has been insisting that since none of the parties was physically present in all the 26,000 polling stations, the focus of evidence should be the pink sheet. He famously quipped in court that "you and I were not there".

But Tony Lithur said if the argument of the petitioners is accepted it would create a situation where after every election anybody can collect the pink sheets, study them and come to court to allege fraud.

He suggested that the evidence on the face of the pink sheets was not sufficient basis to annul votes because it eliminates the vital role of party agents who signed the sheets without a single complaint.

He discounted the claim by Dr. Bawumia during cross-examination when he said although polling agents signed the pink sheets they were merely endorsing irregularities and not attesting to the credibility of the results.

He explained that there is a legal requirement to register complaints on a special form designed for this purpose which the NPP polling agents did not use.

He said the sheer absence of complaint supports the Electoral Commission’s claim that the elections were transparent. EC's 10th December 2012 declaration of John Mahama as winner ought, therefore, to be trusted because on the face of the pink sheets, there was no protest.