Lower Manya Krobo NDC descend on EC over 'manipulated' voter register

The Lower Manya Krobo branch of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Eastern Region is asking the Electoral Commission to, as a matter of urgency, conduct an audit of the entire 2024 constituency voter register.

The party is accusing the Electoral Commission (EC) of allegedly collaborating with the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to unlawfully inflate the voters’ register in the area.

At a press conference at the party’s constituency office at Nuaso on Friday, September 6, 2024, the party’s constituency chairman, John Atter Matey, claimed that a bloated transfer list of 2359 was discovered through their vigilance, arguing that only 978 voters transferred their Votes to the constituency during the limited registration exercise.

“This means that, the EC has illegally transferred 1381 mores voters to Lower Manya. We believe this is deliberate and a calculated attempt by the EC to get those illegal voters to vote twice in favour of the NPP candidate. This could lead to multiple voting,” stated the chairman.

The Constituency chairman furthered that the party's audit also detected what it called an unexplained reduction/deletion of 179 registered voters from the register, adding that the situation, if not corrected immediately could lead to disenfranchising the affected persons.

According to Mr. Matey, the NDC also noticed a bloated absentee list of 3860. “We as a party has a total of 642 as the list for the special voter list. On this list, the EC has over 3218 illegal people. We don’t know where it got this number from,” the chairman noted.

The discrepancies, the chairman stressed have severe implications for the integrity of the December 7th presidential and parliamentary elections, noting that the anomalies are a deliberate attempt by the EC, in collusion with the ruling NPP, to rig the election in favour of their presidential and parliamentary candidates.

The party while urging its party faithful to remain calm however demanded immediate transparency and accountability from the EC to ensure a free and fair election, warning that the NDC would not stand idly by while the electoral process is compromised.

He thus called on all stakeholders to join them in demanding a credible Voter Register to guarantee a transparent election.

Asked if the party has officially tabled its concerns before the electoral body, the chairman answered in the affirmative but added that it did not receive any favourable response from the EC.

Warning that the party wouldn't accept any anomalies, he said, “…come December 07 and we record any anomaly, that one I can assure you that the people of Lower Manya NDC will not accept anything other than the right figures."

Supporting the chairman’s stance, Mr. Ebenezer Okletey Terlabi, Member of Parliament (MP) for Lower Manya Krobo accused the electoral body of colluding with the ruling government to subvert the will of the people. He averred: “This year, we’ve realzed that the EC and the NPP are bent on subverting the will of the people.”

According to the party’s Parliamentary Candidate (PC) for the 2024 parliamentary elections, the EC, when contacted by the party to explain the bizzare figures recorded for the limited voter register directed the party to seek answers from its superiors at the regional and national levels.

“We approached the EC on the disparities in the limited voter registration figures and they denied knowing where the figures came from and directed us to seek answers from the head office,” Mr. Terlabi said.

Emphasizing that the NDC would not accept any questionable figures, the lawmaker warned: “We are not going to rest on our oars, we’ll not allow this to go on, we know our leaders are engaging them at the national level but we’re sending a signal and a caution to them that Lower Manya would not countenance this dubious, these criminal efforts to get NPP to get what they don’t deserve.”

Lower Manya Krobo District Electoral Officer, Mr. Jonathan Okine when contacted declined immediate commnent on the issue on the grounds that he must first seek authorization from his superiors before responding to the concerns of the NDC.