Ghana's EC assures that it cannot manipulate already declared results

Ghana

The Electoral Commission of Ghana has assured candidates and their supporters that it cannot manipulate election results which have already been declared at the polling station since the close of polls on Wednesday night.

The EC was addressing concerns raised by some political parties who alleged that the delay in the release of results was as a result of an attempt to manipulate the figures.

“We want to assure you that we cannot change the results in any way. We cannot manipulate the results. The results have already been declared on a polling station by polling station basis. All we are doing is to take those results and put them together, but in doing that, we must ensure accuracy,” Charlotte Osei, the chairperson of the Electoral Commission announced to the media on Thursday evening.

She also explained the reason for the delay which included the reliance on only the manual mode of transmission of results to the National Collation Centre in Accra due to the “compromise of the electronic transmission system”.

“Accuracy is more important than speed. The duty we hold for Ghana is not to declare results quickly but declare accurate results that reflect the will of the people of Ghana,” she added citing an increased number of polling stations and the 2012 election that took 72 hours for results to be declared.

Also, Charlotte Osei pointed out that they have only 90 constituency results in their possession which have not been signed by agents of candidates who insisted they will do so only when they see the results slip from the collation centres in the regions.

“The absence of signatures does not invalidate results. We will give them some time to sign them but provisional results will be put out to the public,” she added.

Both the opposition and ruling parties immediately called on their supporters to be calm and patient as the country waits for results from the Electoral Commission. They also insisted on winning the elections per their collated results.