NDC abandons push for a forensic audit of voters register after IPAC meeting?

After months of calls for a forensic audit of the voters register and a nationwide demonstration to back their call, the National Democratic Congress(NDC) after an Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting has since released a statement and the reason for which they agitated was not mentioned.

The party which is the largest opposition, has been trumpeting calls for an independent body to audit the electoral roll citing discrepancies it found during the exhibition of the register.

The NDC alleges discrepancies, including illegal name transfers, missing voters and the inclusion of the names of over 50,000 dead people.

NDC director of elections Dr Omane Boamah said an independent audit of the electoral roll is the only way to ensure transparency and fairness in the electoral process.

The Electoral Commission has repeatedly asked the NDC to provide evidence to back their claim, but the election management body said it is yet to receive that information from the party.

Their consistent calls led to the Electoral Commission convening an Inter-Party Advisory Committee(IPAC) meeting attended by all the political parties and presidential candidates on Tuesday, October 1, 2024 to address their concerns.

But the NDC in a press statement titled "NDC POSITION ON MATTERS ARISING FROM IPAC, RELATIVE TO THE 2024 PROVISIONAL VOTERS’ REGISTER" issued Tuesday night, was, however silent on the call for forensic audit of the voterS register.

Read below the full statement:

NDC POSITION ON MATTERS ARISING FROM IPAC, RELATIVE TO THE 2024

PROVISIONAL VOTERS’ REGISTER.

Following the Special Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) Meeting held today, Tuesday, 1st October 2024, to deliberate on the 2024 Provisional Voters Register, the Functional Executive Committee (FEC) of the National Democratic Congress deems it fit to restate the following significant admissions by the Electoral Commission of Ghana:

❖ Illegal transfer of voters due to the lack of a liveliness test technology, as occurred in Pusiga and other Constituencies,

❖ Erroneous addition of previous transfers to the current 2024 transfer list?

❖ Presence of corrupted files in the 2024 Provisional Voters’ Register, which the Commission claims have been rectified and restored,

❖ Deleted voters who the Commission wishes to place on a Missing Voters register, and

❖ A vulnerable EC IT system that is susceptible to data manipulation and infiltration from officials and non-officials of the Electoral Commission who have access to login credentials.

With this background, the Functional Executive Committee of the NDC has deliberated and decided to accept the EC’s promise to release to political parties, the corrected/updated version of the 2024 Provisional Voters Register for scrutiny within one week.

FEC further welcomes the decision by the Electoral Commission to re-exhibit the updated Provisional Voters’ Register. We however recommend that the re-exhibition exercise should be conducted online and offline at the exhibition centres.

Additionally, the NDC demands a multi-stakeholder and interparty examination of the IT system of the Electoral Commission with the aim of addressing the vulnerabilities that the EC itself has admitted to, which vulnerabilities led to several of the anomalies we have raised.

Clearly, the vulnerabilities in the IT system of the Electoral Commission can be exploited by criminals to compromise the integrity of the December 07, 2024 elections if not addressed.

SIGNED.

FIFI FIAVI KWETEY

GENERAL SECRETARY

KA

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