Petitioners in the 2012 presidential election petition have urged the nine justices of the Supreme Court, who are hearing the case, to take judicial notice of, and further examine critically, the “bizarre nature” of the results of the December presidential election, which produced a huge disparity in the votes recorded for John Dramani Mahama, Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Congress, and the total number of votes polled by all the parliamentary candidates of his party.

They also want the Supreme Court to take a critical look at what could have accounted for the situation where the total number of votes obtained by all the parliamentary candidates of the NDC was less than what was obtained by their counterparts in the New Patriotic Party. In simple terms, they find it “curious” how the NPP Minority could record 121,214 more votes than the NDC Majority in the 2012 general elections.

Addressing the court on Wednesday, Philip Addison, lead counsel for the petitioners, disclosed that the number of votes that stood in the name of John Dramani Mahama was in excess of 447,121 over the total votes obtained by all parliamentary candidates of the NDC.

But in the case of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party, the votes that stood in his name was merely 16 more than what all the parliamentary candidates of his party obtained.

The petitioners insist that the vote difference of 447,121 between Mr Mahama and the NDC parliamentary candidates could not be attributed to the phenomenon of voters voting for a presidential candidate and voting against the parliamentary candidates of his party (“skirt and blouse voting”). The reason is simple: the NDC was declared to have won majority of seats in Parliament, and indeed forms the Majority in the current Parliament.

“It is important to note that the declaration of 9th December, 2012, by 2nd respondent of 1st respondent as winner of the December 2012 presidential race was supported by a margin of less than 1 per cent of the total number of votes cast at the election. The difference in votes between the 1st Respondent and the 1st Petitioner was 325, 863,” Mr Addison told the court.

He added: “This result should be taken against a backdrop of the outcome of votes garnered by the presidential and parliamentary candidates for the NPP and NDC respectively in the December 2012 elections.”

According to Mr Addison, the 1st Petitioner, Nana Akufo-Addo, obtained a total of 5,248,898 votes as against a total of 5,248,882 by all NPP Parliamentary candidates, showing a difference of only 16.

However, John Dramani Mahama, who is the 1st respondent, obtained a total of 5,574,761 votes as against 5,127,641 obtained by all the NDC parliamentary candidates, showing a whopping difference of 447,121.

“This huge difference cannot be explained away by what is popularly called “skirt and blouse” voting because the NDC had a majority in Parliament,” Mr Addison maintained, adding: “this majority in Parliament is curious and undermines the one man one vote principle enshrined in ...the Constitution because a majority of Ghanaians voted for the NPP parliamentarians who now find themselves in the minority in Parliament.”

The NPP candidates garnered 121,241 votes more than their NDC counterparts who are now in the majority in Parliament.

While admitting that presidential election petitions in some other countries, such as Kenya and Nigeria, had not been successful, due to technicalities and the lack of the required numbers, Mr Addison told the court that each of the four main categories of infractions was enough to affect the outcome of the December 2012 presidential election.

“As has been shown in the analysis of the petitioners’ evidence, upholding the claim of the petitioners exclusively with any one of the four main categories (over-voting, voting without biometric verification, absence of presiding officers’ signature and duplicate serial numbers) is enough, per the requirement of Article 63(3), to invalidate the election of 1st respondent,” he stressed.

Mr Addison told the court that even though the respondents had persistently maintained that the December 2012 election was regularly conducted and that the Court should uphold the declaration made by the Chairman of the EC, whenever they were confronted with the primary record of the poll, the pink sheet, they ran away from it on the grounds that there were defects on the record.

“Even more bizarre is the fact that in spite of their misgivings, it is these same defective pink sheets that went into the declaration,” he added.

Reacting to the doubts cast about the number of pink sheet exhibits filed by the petitioners, Mr Addison told the court that considering the fact that “one box of the president was not counted and the respondents did not disclose what pink sheets they were holding and there were several uncounted boxes in the Registrar’s vault, one can easily surmise that the petitioners’ claim that they filed 11,842 pink sheets is justified.”

According to KPMG, unique pink sheets from the Registrar’s set were 8,675. Out of the excluded 1,545, 2nd respondent identified 1,234 unique pink sheets. Out of the pink sheets found in the president’s set but not in the Registrar’s set a unique count of 804 was made. Petitioners furthermore identified 648 unique pink sheets used by 1st and 3rd respondents in cross-examination of 2nd petitioner making a total of 11,421, Mr Addison explained to the court.

“It is instructive to note that, at the time KPMG started work, the petitioners had voluntarily deleted 704 polling stations and were therefore relying on only 11,138 pink sheets. The Petitioners in their written address are now relying on 10,119 pink sheets which include the 22 unknown locations,” he pointed out.