‘Elections are not won at EC headquarters’ – Electoral Commission tells NDC

The Deputy Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC) in charge of Operations, Samuel Tettey, has, like the Supreme Court said after the 2012 presidential election petition, told the NDC that elections are not won at the polling centre.

Mr. Tettey says if the party trains its agents well to man the polls on the election day, their results will tally with that of the Commission, since elections are not won at the EC’s headquarters but at the polling station.

His remarks come on the back of allegations made by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) that the EC, based on the errors it recorded in the number of people it had registered at the ongoing limited voter registration exercise, was planning on rigging the polls for the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP).

At a press conference Friday, May 17, 2024, in response to the allegations made by the General Secretary of the opposition NDC the day earlier, Mr. Tettey disclosed that the electoral processes would not grant the Commission the capacity to rig the elections for any party as the NDC  is speculating.

“If a political party participates in all the process of the EC and collates their results well, their figure will tally with that of the EC. Elections are won at polling stations and not the EC headquarters,” he stressed, also discarding allegations by the NDC that the recruitment of returning officers by the EC was opaque.

He explained that the electoral processes, ranging from voter registration, exhibition of voters register, balloting for positions on the ballot paper, printing of ballot papers, to the activities on the election day, were transparent, and therefore, left no space for opacity.

For instance, he said political parties were officially informed of any voter registration exercise at least 21 days to the commencement of the exercise. Again, he said the level of transparency on election day, where all parties had their agents at polling stations and also monitored the counting and collation, made it impossible for rigging to take place.

Based on the transparent processes underlined by the Deputy EC Boss, he reemphasised that “the EC is not in any position to rig elections for any party.”