EC reacts to NDC claim of over 200,000 illegal voter transfers and more | Politics

The Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC) has responded to some allegations of illegal voter transfers in the provisional voter register for the upcoming December 7, 2024 general elections led by the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Speaking during a panel discussion on JoyNews on Tuesday, September 10, 2024, the EC’s Director of Electoral Services, Benjamin Bano-Bioh, said that allegations of illegal vote transfers in the registry were completely false.

He explained that the transfers that the NDC describes as illegal are transfers that have been carried out since 2020 and were deliberately included in the voters' register.

“Please, there are no more than 15,000 illegal transfers. The transfer list that was given to them was made up of transfers that we had made since 2020, when we first compiled the register. So it was 2020 transfers, 2023 transfers and 2024 transfers. These are people who were transferred to the various polling stations. They are not ghosts; they are not inflated. They are in the register. Yet we have a list called the transfer list and this time we have recorded them since the register was created, so since 2020.

“They (the NDC) raised this issue and we told them that these are transfers since 2020. So if you deduct the transfers from 2020 and then from 2023, you get the real number. We told them that we have it and we even told them that if you deduct the two transfers – 2020 and 2023 – you get the same number that they are talking about. So it is not an inflated number? It is not inflated,” he explained.

The EC's Chief Electoral Officer further explained that the inclusion of previous transfers was intentional and was done to enable the Commission to track voter movements.

He added that the EC had explained the matter to the NDC and would provide them with the voter transfer list for 2024.

“Originally, we wanted to track the movements of all voters. So we did that and decided to give it to them. But now they say they want the 2024 election. That's what we got. And so at our last meeting, we told them that this would be ready for them.

“We printed it out. We knew that the transfer list given was from 2020 to the current year. As I said, we wanted to track the movements of all voters since 2020 and that's what we did. Transferred,” he explained.

The NDC’s Deputy Director of Elections and IT, Dr. Rashid Tanko-Computer, who was among the panelists on the programme, did not believe the explanation given by the EC’s Director of Elections.

He insisted on his party's position that there had been illegal voter transfers in the electoral register.

He explained that the voter transfer list issued by the EC does not reflect the transfers made since 2020 and that some of them cannot be traced and are not on the postal voter list as required by law.

The NDC stated that it has so far identified the following irregularities in the voter transfer list:

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

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

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

4. 2,094 voters were transferred to other polling stations but were not on the postal voter list as required by law.

5. Corrupted files missing the names and photos of registered voters, which is feared on election day.