The balloting for positions by presidential candidates for the 2024 general elections was stalled for close to an hour due to accusations of one of the balls being used for the balloting being tampered with.
Director of Elections and IT of the National Democratic Congress, Dr Omane Boamah, after the first round of balloting raised concerns about one of the balls.
“That ball, one and only, has that element at the junction between the glass and the yellowish base, that distinguishes that ball from the rest of the balls.
“We cannot tell at what time that ball entered the bowl. What we are submitting is that it is out of fairness that the EC said let’s ballot and choose the sequence by which we are going to select our positions on the ballot paper. It is also out of fairness that the EC said in choosing that sequence, it should be an unbiased exercise. Therefore, if the mechanism through which bias is being eliminated itself introduces a bias ball it undermines the fairness of the first ballot.”
He continued that “That is why I am submitting that if we want an unbiased process at the beginning of the ballot it is only fair that these same papers that have not been destroyed are folded into the replacement balls and the first stage of the ballot repeated.”
His assertion was however not taken lightly by other representatives present with the New Patriotic Party representatives saying Dr Omane Boamah was accusing the rest of them of supporting biasness.
“At the commencement of this exercise, you subjected your balls to the scrutiny by parties upon concerns raised by the NDC. They examined the balls in its size, nature, character and weight. APC did same, LPG did same. New Patriotic Party we sat here and we allowed it to go on.
“Dr Omane Boamah is raising concern about not knowing where the ball that he is objecting to came from. We were all here when the balls were opened, numbers were slotted in, closed and put into a bowl for parties to come and select.”
He added “Per the submissions of Dr Omane Boamah, he’s indicting all of us that we have not been detailed, we’ve been shallow and we’re here supporting biasness, that is not the position of the New Patriotic Party… we appreciate transparency, fairness professionalism. We will not sit here for his own judgement to be used as the rules of the game.
“At this point the New patriotic party submits that the ball that has been contested should be taken out and others added so that we have the nine set of balls to go through this exercise and complete peacefully.”
After several minutes of arguments, the process was allowed to continue with the bowl for balloting being replaced with a rubber bag.
Source: Ghanaweb.com
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