Voters Register Saga: NDC presents evidence of illegal transfers, others to CSOs

The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has presented evidence of the illegal voter transfers and other irregularities it found in the voters register for the petition to civil society organisations in the country.

The Director of Elections and IT of the NDC, Dr. Edward Omane Boamah, during the presentation of the party’s findings on Monday, September 23, 2024, explained the method his party used to find the anomalies in the register given to his party by the EC, the 2023 Voters Register.

He said that a forensic audit of the register would help bring out more issues in the register that the NDC’s method could not find.

“What we did was we used SQL to query the database to check if a voter is present in the current register or not; if any voter has his or her polling station changed, that is the transfers and whether they are legal; if they are legal, of course you expect that they should be in the absent list of that polling station. They should be in the transfer list of the other polling station that he or she would have transferred to.

“But you may even have those ones showing. But if you go beyond the quantitative and dig into the qualitative, for all you know, they may not have transferred. And this is why we say our methodology cannot unearth everything, every disease that is afflicting this register,” he said.

The NDC director of elections also clarified that the party is not only asking the Electoral Commission of Ghana for an audit of the voters register but also an audit of the EC’s IT system.

He explained that the audits would help find the root cause of the irregularities in the register so that they are not only resolved but are prevented from happening in the future.

“We need to note this forensic audit of the register and its IT system because I want my vote protected. I know you want your vote protected. This forensic audit will seek to unravel the root cause if it is one or if more than one, the root causes of avoidable and sometimes deliberate errors that we have seen. And as I have said already, what we are seeking is related. There are two correcting errors on the register and also closing the vulnerabilities in the system.

“Very, very important. Otherwise, let’s face it, if they just correct the errors, can’t the very people who affected the deliberate errors overnight restore them? If you don’t fix the gaps? So, it’s important it’s not just a matter of correcting the errors. And we know the EC is listening,” he said.

The NDC has been calling for a forensic audit of the voters register for the pending December 7, 2024, general elections, citing illegal voter transfers and other irregularities in the register.

The party has said that an independent audit of the register and its re-exhibition is needed due to some irregularities found in it, including:

1. 243,540 previous transfers illegally added to 2024 transfers, including repetition of illegally transferred names.

2. 15,000+ unidentifiable voter transfer paths (due to fake registration of voters). Where were they originally registered?

3. 3,957 voters in the 2023 register but deleted from the 2024 provisional register due to transfer.

4. 2,094 voters transferred to different polling stations but not found in the Absent Voter List as required by law.

5. Corrupt files not showing names and photos of the registered voters.

Watch his remarks in the video below:

Voters' Register Audit: NDC presents evidence to support their forensic audit demand#MetroNews pic.twitter.com/nUgCW8Ltb6

— Metro TV Ghana (@metrotvgh) September 24, 2024

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