NDC raises issues with printing of excess ballot papers for 2020 polls

The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has expressed reservations with the printing of excess ballot papers by the Electoral Commission (EC) for the December 7, 2020 polls.

According to the NDC, instead of the normal printing of five percent excess ballot papers in all elections to take of unexpected situations such as spoilt ballots, the EC was this year colluding with one of the seven printing houses undertaking the exercise, Assembly Press.

At a press conference on Sunday, November 1, 2020, the NDC accused the EC of printing about 150,000 surplus ballots aside from the 5 percent required excess ballot papers per polling station.

The National Campaign Coordinator for the NDC, Professor Joshua Alabi who addressed the media on the matter said such irregularities will not be countenanced by the party.

“By convention and practice, the EC prints an extra 5 percent of the total registered voters in each polling station to cater for spoiled ballots but what is surprising this time is that the EC is rather printing an addition 5 percent of the total registered voters per constituency in the total number of ballot papers to be printed. What this translates into is that more ballot papers are being printed in excess of the 5 percent extra ballot papers required for the polling station. From the ballot statistics from the printing houses as coming from the EC, we (NDC) have analyzed the figure from 13 regions and observed that there is an excess of over 150,000 ballot papers been printed beyond the extra 5% required.”

“This happened at the Assembly press which is one of the contractors printing the ballot papers, and we (NDC) also found out that, the Assembly Press is printing additional ballot papers at a different location on the blind side of the agents of the political parties. The NDC is completely upset with the irregularities as the MD of the Assembly Press who is an appointee of the President was an aspirant who contested the NPP 2020 parliamentary primaries in the Nkawkaw constituency and the Convener of Let My Vote Count Alliance, a pressure group of the NPP.”

The EC began the printing of ballot papers for the December 7 presidential and parliamentary elections on Monday, October 26, 2020.

Seven printing houses in Accra were selected by the EC to spearhead the exercise.

Below is a copy of the NDC's address read at the press briefing

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