NDC’s call for forensic audit of voters register had no substance – Akufo-Addo

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President of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has indicated that there was little substance in the National Democratic Congress’ calls for a forensic audit of the voters register.

Speaking to France 24 in an interview, the President disclosed that the Electoral Commission, which is the body in charge of elections in Ghana, made public their IPAC meeting, and the people of Ghana realized that the calls for a forensic audit were empty.

“There was little substance in the claims that the opposition was making, and they have now gone ahead to say that they will abide by the program that the Electoral Commission has laid out.

I think that means implicitly that the demands they were making have been shelved, and they have to be shelved because they have no substance,” he emphasized.

The NDC, after the recently held IPAC meeting, issued a statement indicating that they want the re-exhibition promised by the EC done both online and offline.

Read Their Statement Below:

Re-exhibition of Voters Register and Audit of IT System of the Electoral Commission

The Electoral Commission has promised to release another Provisional Voters Register ahead of the 2024 presidential and parliamentary elections on Saturday December 7.

It’s instructive to note that at the Special Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) Meeting on Tuesday, 1st October 2024, the Electoral Commission of Ghana admitted wrongdoing in the following significant issues:

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

* 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.

Thus, the Functional Executive Committee of the NDC has 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.

We have also emphasized the need for the Electoral Commission to re-exhibit the updated Provisional Voters’ Register.

However, we recommend that the re-exhibition exercise should be conducted online and offline at the exhibition centres, because many polling areas have poor network.

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.