Elections 2024: Ahafo, Volta regions… over serialisation errors, affected ballots shredded, burnt

The Electoral Commission (EC) yes­terday announced that it has destroyed excess and defective electoral materials through shredding for the Ahafo and Volta regions ahead of the 2024 gener­al elections.

To this end, the EC said it would reprint the ballot papers for the Ahafo and Volta regions for the De­cember 7, 2024 election.

It said the decision to reprint ballots for the two regions was to uphold electoral professionalism and maintain global standards; having found that one of the printing houses encountered challenges with the serialisation of the ballots.

“Our audit revealed that the printing house which was printing the ballots for Ahafo and Volta had en­countered a number of challenges.

“While the printing of the ballots had gone on seamlessly, the serialisation which was supposed to be done through an automated system to provide serial numbers based on a sequence had gaps. As a result, a manual system was adopted by the printing house to fill the gaps,” the Commission said in a statement.

Signed by Samuel Tettey, the Deputy Commissioner in charge of operations in Accra on Saturday, the EC said “upon further assessment, the Commission decid­ed the manual process was not fool-proof and could therefore not be relied on to produce an accurate serialisation of ballots”.

It said the decision had duly been communicated to the political parties and other stakeholders.

The ballots, the Commission said, would now be printed by Bucks Press and Acts Commercials respec­tively.

The Commission said the affected ballots would be shredded and burned in the presence of the represen­tatives of the political parties.

It clarified that the hitch with the serialisation was brought to the attention of the Commission by its Team stationed at the affected printing house as con­firmed by the Audit Department of the Commission.

“No political party, whether formally or informally, notified the Commission about the challenges with the serialisation even though their agents were present throughout the process,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, the EC yesterday confirmed the de­struction through shredding, of excess and defective electoral materials for the Ahafo and Volta Regions ahead of the 2024 general elections.

The EC said the materials destroyed were made up of excess/scrap ballot papers and plates used for the printing of the Presidential and parliamentary ballots for the Ahafo and Volta Regions.

The Commission in a statement signed by Samuel Tettey, the Deputy Chairman of Operations at the Commission sighted by The Ghanaian Times noted that the defective materials were destroyed on Satur­day, in the presence of relevant stakeholders.

“The destruction done through burning was witnessed by the Agents of the Political Parties, the National Intelligence Bureau, National Security, Ghana Police Service and the Electoral Commission,” part of the statement read.

It stated further that to maintain transparency, the EC assured stakeholders that additional ballots with serial number discrepancies would also be accounted for and subsequently destroyed.

“The commission will today, Sunday, November 17, 2024, account for all the ballot papers printed for both Regions which will be

The Commission will inform the Political Parties and other Stakeholders in due course to enable them to observe the destruction of these ballot papers,” the statement concluded.

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