Unsigned pink sheets don't change results – Afari-Gyan

Chairman of Ghana’s Electoral Commission, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, has conceded that about 3 per cent of election results records were unsigned, but insisted that the failure to sign those pink sheets did not, in any way, affect the results of the 2012 elections.

He said the Commission’s analysis showed that more than 96 per cent of pink sheets were signed by presiding agents while about 99 per cent of the sheets were signed by polling agents of the different political parties that took part in the election.

Dr. Afari-Gyan told the Supreme Court on Tuesday June 4, 2013 during his evidence-in-chief that presiding officers are burdened with so many responsibilities on the day of voting, thus the failure by a minority of them to sign the pink sheets.

He said the presiding officers are not only responsible for supervising the voting process at the polling stations, but also do a whole gamut of things, which may distract their attention from signing the pink sheets.

“We take a view that when you have performed all these other duties and the forms have been signed by the candidates, even though that failure to sign is an irregularity, it will not affect the validity of the results, and therefore, from the point of view of the Commission, where the presiding officer has not signed, but the agents have signed, we accept the results”.

Unsigned pink sheets are one of several vehicles of rigging alleged by the petitioners who are challenging the results of the 2012 presidential polls.