By preventing the NDC from sealing vote boxes during Monday's special voting exercise, the Ashanti Regional election Commission (EC) Director has been charged by the NDC's Deputy Director of Elections and IT of sabotaging election protocols.

Speaking on Joy News' PM Express, Dr. Rashid Tanko-Computer called the episode a grave breach of electoral laws and a danger to Ghana's democracy. He disclosed in an interview on Joy News' PM Express on Tuesday that "the Special Voting wasn't rosy." "It would have been a disgrace to Ghanaians if we hadn't had to control our rage."

The EC provided ballot boxes and election materials on Sunday evening, one day prior to the special voting exercise, as Dr. Tanko-Computer described. He clarified that in order to preserve the integrity of the elections, political parties are customarily permitted to put their seals on vote boxes next to the EC's. Tanko-Computer, however, said that the Ashanti Regional EC Director specifically instructed district officers to prevent the NDC from applying their seals to the ballot boxes.



I'm stating that he given directions. He advised them against the NDC applying a seal. "Are you going to put seals on all 400 of our ballot boxes?" he questioned me when I approached him. And I promised to install one million seals if he brought one million ballot boxes. That is the CI's statement.

Senior EC officials, including Mr. Tettey and Dr. Bossman Asare, were notified by Dr. Tanko-Computer of the situation, and they took action. He eventually gave up when they had to call him.

However, he bemoaned the fact that several districts were already functioning following his original directives by that point. Dr. Tanko-Computer also slammed the Ashanti Regional EC Director for reportedly telling officials not to give party agents the validation stamp number, which he called a flagrant breach of CI 127, the law governing Ghanaian elections.

According to Dr. Tanko-Computer, "the CI is very clear." "Parts A and B of the pink sheet must be filled out before voting starts. To guarantee that any stamp that does not match that number during sorting can be recognised as foreign material, Part B contains the validation stamp number, which needs to be noted.

However, the Regional Director directed that our agents not be given access to this information. He charged that the EC official was endangering democracy and peace in Ghana. "It is this Regional Director who will put the peace agreement we signed in danger. Who is granting him abilities that he does not possess? The computer, Dr. Tanko, asked.

Evans Nimako, the Director of Research and Elections for the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), responded to the allegations by calling Tanko-Computer's worries "overblown." "CI 127 is the guiding rule," Mr. Nimako said. Ballot boxes are sealed at several levels, beginning at the printing firms in Accra and continuing at the district and regional levels. Tanko-Computer's agents should just fix any missing sealing at a later time if they did so in the past. He said the NDC was causing needless stress.

"Dr. Tanko has been rushing around on this minor matter far too often. Dr. Rashid Tanko-Computer and Dr. Omane Boama are the NDC's issues. They portray simple matters that are settled at the IPAC level as though everything must fall apart', Mr Nimako continued.