Don’t be in a rush to declare December 7 results within 24 hours – NDC warns EC

The largest opposition National Democratic Congress(NDC) has cautioned the Electoral Commission(EC) against rushing to declare results of the upcoming 7th December general election 24 hours after voting ends.

The Director of Electoral Services of the Election Commission, Dr. Serebour Quaicoe, has said plans are underway to ensure there is no undue delay 24 hours after polls close.

“All things being equal, we are hoping that before we go to bed on the 8th of December, we would have come out with the presidential results,” he said in an interview with Joy News.

He added that just like the 2016 elections, “we will use the manual transmission” in this year’s election.

“The polling stations will submit the results to the constituency, the constituency will send their results to the region and the region will fax the results to us,” he clarified.

But NDC Director of Election, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah addressing a press conference in Accra on Wednesday stated any such haste to declare the results will produce unrealistic results.

“What is the basis for this claim, what mechanism, structures and systems have you put in place to ensure that this claim that you’re making you’ll be able to meet without having any problems. How does it work in practical terms. An election is a process, results are declared at the polling station. Those results move from the polling station to the constituency collation centre, from the constituency collation centre you have now created another layer at the regional level. Then from the regional level to the national level. And especially for the Presidential ballot, the Electoral Commission herself is supposed to be the Chief returning officer. By this process is she saying that she’s going to see every single result from all the 275 constituencies before she makes a declaration? can’t you see the danger here. Is she going to rely on only the 16 regions?

He added: “So you see they are creating another unrealistic expectation and when the day comes and by that time they are not able to what will they do, are they going to cook numbers, are they going to announce any other thing at all just because they want to meet an unrealistic 24-hour timeline, who forced them? These are the things they do and they cause problems for everybody. Nobody has put a gun to their heads. It is important to have timely results but it’s better to have accurate, truthful results that reflect what the people voted for and we’ll not take anything less than that. We need accurate results that reflect what the people have voted for not any churned out results based on any 24-hour pressure. It is completely unacceptable.”