EC Officers Admit To Heavy Padding Of Voter Register In Ashanti

The refusal of the Electoral Commission  (EC) to officially comment on allegations that it is padding voters’ numbers in the Ashanti Region is increasingly being considered an admission of guilt.

The Ashanti Region is the stronghold of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) and already critics have pointed out that the reason why the EC controversially pushed through the compilation of a new voters’ register was to manipulate voter figures in favour of the NPP.

The Ashanti regional branch of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has said that it knows that the padding was deliberately perpetrated by the EC which was thinking that the NDC would not notice.

“We believe that these acts are deliberate, nothing more. These are carefully calculated and well-designed attempts to pad figures in the Ashanti Region. We have drawn the attention of the EC to the development and their district officers have confirmed our figures to be right,” said the NDC’s regional Secretary.

According to the NDC, the  shocking numbers from the first phase of the registration saw actual voter numbers being increased almost three times for various constituencies in the Ashanti Region.

For instance, in the first batch of the first phase of the registration exercise the EC registered, 7, 869 applicants in the Offinso North Constituency, however  the EC published 26,886 as registered applicants.

In the Afigya Sekyere East Constituency the EC registered 8,975 but published 14,263 while in Afigya Kwabre, EC registered 5,268 applicants but published 10,419

Also in the Juaben Constituency, the EC registered, 5,802 applicants in the first batch of the first phase but Jean Mensah published 11,574.

“The regional leadership of the EC has also admitted that the figures are indeed padded. But as usual, they claim they were entered in error. We are by this medium giving the EC 48 hours, to as a matter of urgency, publish the right figures for the first batch of the first phase of the registration exercise to safeguard the integrity of the new voters roll,” the NDC warned the EC.

“We also serve notice, that if the intention of the Electoral Commission is to test our vigilance then they are in for a marathon. We are monitoring them closely from all angles and from all reach and they cannot beat us to this game,” the Ashanti regional NDC said.