KPMG count vindicates petitioners

The KPMG count of the number of exhibits submitted by the petitioners in the ongoing Supreme Court presidential election petition has established very clearly that the petitioners submitted more than 11,000 unique polling station pink sheets as the petitioners have reiterated all along. This is far in excess of the 3,500 pink sheets the petitioners need to get an outright declaration for Nana Akufo-Addo as the winner of the December 7th elections if the court upholds the arguments of the petitioners.

The KPMG count has also pointed to mix-ups in the service, by the registry, to the various parties as accounting for the discrepancies in exhibits received by the parties.

The count showed general discrepancies in the exhibits of both the registrar and the presiding Judge. Analysis of the KPMG count shows that there are pink sheets in the registrar’s set that were not found in the set of the president of the panel, and also pink sheets in the president’s set that were not found in the registrar’s set.

Also, revealing as has been pointed out in the comment of the petitioners on the report of KPMG, is the fact that out of the pink sheets used by the respondents for the cross-examination of 2nd petitioner, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, are a number of pink sheets not found in either the registrar’s set or the president of the panel’s set, indicating that the respondents also had pink sheets that were not found in both the registrar’s set and the president of the panel’s set.

KPMG Count

The count of the registrar’s copy showed a total count of 13,926 physical sheets including duplicates of 3,593 leaving a unique count of 10,333.

The count of the president’s set of pink sheets, on the other hand, indicated a total of 9,860 pink sheets excluding a box of pink sheets in the exclusive duplicate serial number series (P- series) that has not been counted. Interestingly, the count of the president’s set indicated a total of 871 pink sheets that are not part of the registrar’s set.

An analysis of the KPMG’s count, taking into account the unique polling station pink sheets as has been noted by the petitioners in their comment on the report, also reveals that the respondents (John Mahama, EC & the NDC) presented over 4,000 pink sheets in their cross-examination of the 2nd petitioner, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, out of which 1,097 are not part of the registrar’s set as counted by KPMG. Incidentally, 1,015 of these 1,097 are in the MB-P series, which is in apparent shortage in the registrar’s set. 648 of these pink sheets were not part of the registrar’s or the president’s set.

Unique Pink Sheets

The count of the registrar’s set shows that a total of 10,333 unique pink sheets (including 709 pink sheets with unclear or blank polling station codes) were identified. Adding the 871 pink sheets from the president’s set not contained in the registrar’s set clearly indicates that the petitioners submitted a minimum of 11,204 pink sheets to the registry, taking into account only, the counts of the registrar and Justice Atuguba’s sets. Additionally, the 648 pink sheets used by the respondents in their cross-examination, but not contained in either the registrar’s or the president’s set, as has been noted by the petitioners, brings the number of unique pink sheets to 11,852.

The petitioners, however, in their comment to KPMG on the report, indicate that using a combination of polling station name, serial number and exhibit number, they have so far been able to identify 655 out of the 709 pink sheets with unclear or blank polling station codes. Out of these 655 identified, 343 have been identified as unique, meaning that if the duplicates are taken out, it would show that the petitioners submitted a minimum of 11,540 unique pink sheets.

Mix-up in service

The findings of the KPMG count clearly show that there were some mix-ups in the process of service by the registrar on the various parties as even some of the exhibits in the set of the president of the panel and the respondents, are even not in the registry’s set.

Indeed, it stands to reason that if the petitioners, from the available evidence contained in only two sets of the exhibits – the registrar and the president of the court as well as the few exhibits used by the respondents in their cross-examination, have been able to prove a minimum of 11,540 exhibits submitted, then the petitioners could have easily proven all the 11,842 pink sheets if the respondents had been compelled to list to the court all the exhibits they claim to have received.

Respondents’ Case

It is interesting to note that the count of the president of the court’s pink sheets, which was pushed for strenuously by the respondents, has ended up even supporting the case of the petitioners and establishing that the petitioners’ indeed submitted over 11,000 pink sheets and that any issue with the number of unique exhibits could only have arisen from problems in service on the part of the registry, which served all the parties, as well as the Judges.

The respondents had severally maintained that the petitioners’ submitted between 7,000 and 8,000 pink sheet exhibits including duplicate exhibits, and kept insisting that a count would vindicate them.

The Petitioners’ Case

The petitioners are currently challenging results from 11,138 polling stations. It has been identified that the conduct and outcome of elections in these polling stations were affected by various irregularities as is evidenced on the face of pink sheets from these polling stations. These irregularities fall into four main categories – over voting, voting without biometric verification, no signature of presiding officers and the occurrence of duplicate serial numbers on pink sheets.

The petitioners need only 1,500 pink sheets to bring John Mahama down and trigger a run-off as annulling any 1,500 polling stations in the 11,138 polling stations being challenged would mean that John Mahama would not have received the necessary 50%+1 needed for a victory as was declared on December 9th

This is because, all the petitioners need to do is to be able to take off 154,000 votes from John Mahama’s total declared by Afari-Gyan, to see him below the 50%+1 required tally for an outright win; and any of the 4 major categories, if sustained by the Supreme Court, would ensure this.

Again, the petitioners need just 3,500 pink sheets to be sustained by the court to get Nana Akufo-Addo declared as the outright winner of the December 7th elections. All the petitioners need is to annul enough votes to ensure that Nana Akufo-Addo gets a 200,000 margin over John Mahama to ensure the 50%+1 mark, and this is achieved by a combination of any two categories.

For example, a combination of the “Over voting” and “No biometric verification” categories has 3,525 polling stations. Should the court sustain these two categories, annulling the 3,525 polling stations would see Nana Addo having 50.47% (more than the 50%+1 required) as against John Mahama’s 48.06%. Nana Akufo-Addo in this case would have a 230,000 margin over John Mahama.

Click here for the petitioners comment on KPMG draft report