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Six presidential candidates wishing to run the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the upcoming parliamentary elections presented petitions to the party on the credibility of the company responsible for printing the ballots for the next primaries.
The six candidates – Alban SK Bagbin, Nurideen Ali, Mensah Sylvester, Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, Goosie Tanoh and Joshua Alabi – also said that the credibility of the voters' register was debatable because it lacks photographs of the delegates.
In a statement published in full below, the candidates said that a more credible company, such as Assembly Press, should have been responsible for printing the ballots.
They stated that this would have prevented some of the irregularities that shook the election of the party's national executive in November 2018 from recurring.
"We are also deeply concerned by the apparent decision to award the contract for the printing of the ballots to the same company that printed the ballots for the November CEN elections. As you are no doubt aware, several candidates and observers of these elections described important irregularities in the ballots.
"These include the incorrect restitution of candidate names, the misalignment of images and names and the presence of duplicate ballots (ie with the same supposed" unique "serial number) All these irregularities were cited in a speech that calls for the legitimacy of the outcome of some of the NEC elections in question, "asked the candidates.
The petition was sent to the party's National Electoral Commission, with a copy to NDC National Council of Natives President Jerry John Rawlings, NDC Secretary General Johnson Asiedu Nketia and party chairman Samuel Ofosu Ampofo.
The six candidates also asked the party's electoral commission to provide them with a register of voters containing photographs of the voters.
Below is the full statement of the six NDC candidates:
January 23, 2019
National election guidelines
We refer to our discussions last Sunday at the seat of the party. We have made considerable progress in establishing "free and fair" guidelines for the presidential primaries – so much so that we have agreed to conduct a scrutiny and vote pending the text of the new guidelines.
We now hope to receive an update on your proposed discussions with the Council of Elders and the current state of the process.
In the meantime, we want to revisit two issues we discussed on Sunday – the nature of the voters list and the choice of a company to print ballots.
Electoral list of primary electoral colleges
We are deeply concerned that the voters register provided to Aspirants yesterday simply consists of a list of names without a photo, without a voter card number or even with a membership card number of a party. . There is also a considerable inconsistency in formatting. Our concern is obviously that this approach creates opportunities for usurping voter identity and unnecessary confusion on polling day.
The use of a voters list with images has been a common electoral practice in Ghana since 2000: it allows polling agents to verify the identity of potential voters at the polling station and significantly reduce the risk of spoofing. 'identity. We know that the party would not agree to participate in a national election using an electoral list that provides neither photos nor identification numbers. We are of the opinion that the provision of a rolling EC standard clearly meets the requirements of "free and fair" provided for in the settlement reached last Thursday in the Ali / NDC case.
We also know that the party's re-registration exercise (designed specifically to allow the party to specifically identify its members for purposes such as elections) has allowed for the entry of identity card numbers. of the elector of the members. We know that raw data exists at the constituency level (where it was used for CEC elections). It should not be too difficult to update the list of electors and provide voter ID numbers. We have checked informally with the EC and can confirm that if the party provides this information, the EC can print a list of primary electoral colleges including pictures and the voter identification number in a few days .
We recognize that, in a few cases (mainly TEIN members), registrants have not reached the age of voting at the time of the last voter registration exercise at the national level and are not eligible to vote. therefore had no voter ID card to use during the re-registration exercise of the party last year. We are aware that special provisions will have to be made to avoid depriving members of their voting rights and we are willing to be flexible in achieving this.
Printing of ballot papers
We are also deeply concerned by the apparent decision to award the contract of impression ballots to the same company that printed ballots for the November NEC elections. As you probably know, several candidates and observers of these elections described important irregularities in the ballots (among other irregularities). These included Incorrect return of names of applicants, matching of images and names and presence of duplicate ballots (that is, with the same serial number supposed to be "unique"). All of these irregularities were cited in a speech that calls for the legitimacy of the results of some of the CEN elections in question.
Again, in the context of the cited story above We believe that this choice would run counter to the spirit and even the letter of the "free and fair" commitment set out in the Settlement Agreement.
At our meeting last Sunday, we found that the EC had accredited a number of printers for this type of work, including Assembly Press, which is a state-owned facility. We would prefer to work with one of these printing houses. This is also in line with the commitment that after the vote for positions on the voting sheet, the process would be managed by the EC.
We would also like a briefing on election day logistics and in particular on transportation and food with your committee as soon as possible and, hopefully, next week.
Our teams are immediately available to meet with the FEC or the Election Committee to discuss these issues and find acceptable solutions that will not further disrupt the proposed electoral calendar.
cordially
Alban SK Bagbin
Nurideen Ali
Sylvester Mensah
Ekwow Spio-Garbrah
Goosie Tanoh
Joshua Alabi
cc:
L & # 39; Hon. Johnson Asiedu-Nketiah
General secretary
SE Flt Jerry John Rawlings
President of the National Seniors Council
L & # 39; Hon. Samuel Ofusu-Ampofo
President and Chief
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