Officials of the European Observers who were deployed to observe this year’s general elections have argued that the collation of the total votes cast in the various constituencies were not transparent hence some fraudulent activities went on behind the scenes.
According to a report which has just been dropped by the international body in connection with the elections, although, the voting process was free and fair but the collation was otherwise.
They further added that, presiding officers faced severe challenges whiles completing the results form.
Kindly read the full report below to know more…
Counting, observed in 30 polling stations, was conducted in a largely transparent manner and always in a presence of party agents. The overall conduct of the counting process was assessed positively in 27 cases.
However, the EU EOM observers reported that procedures, such as counting of unused ballots, counting of ticks in the voter register and names reference list, counting of ballots in the ballot box, cross-checking the number of ballots in the ballot box against the number of ticks in the voter register, and recording the number of voters verified by the BVD and manually, were frequently not followed.
The EU EOM observers reported several irregularities, such as voters not always marking their ballot in secrecy, mainly due to poor layout of polling stations (in 17 per cent of polling stations observed), biometric verification devices (BVD) not always able to successfully verify the voters (9 per cent), presence of unauthorised persons inside the polling stations (8 per cent) and interference with the work of the polling station staff (4 per cent). Party agents from both NPP and NDC were present in all but one polling station visited. The overall conduct of voting was assessed positively in 95 per cent of the 329 polling stations observed. The EC deployed COVID-19 ambassadors to all polling stations to enforce health protocols.
Meanwhile, the NDC has rejected the EC’s final verdict with the same concerns raised by the EU.
