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In a desperate attempt to shore up the YES votes for the candidature of President John Dramani Mahama, the National Democratic Congress(NDC) officials together with electoral officers of the Electoral Commission (EC) encouraged electorate to cast their ballots without being biometrically verified during the weekend’s presidential primaries in North Tongu, Today’s investigations have revealed.

This was contrary to the election rules guiding the conduct of the primaries which were earlier advertised by NDC’s election committee.

Per the rules, all delegates for the primaries were to have their fingerprints verified biometrically using the verification machine before they could cast ballots.

Surprisingly, Today observed that the infraction in North Tongu occurred with the tacit approval of EC officials who were supposed to supervise the process to ensure strict adherence to the election guide.

A visit to some of the polling centres in the constituency last Saturday, November 21, 2015 revealed that majority of eligible voters who cast their ballots to endorse President Dramani Mahama did not go through biometric verification.

Today gathered that these electoral irregularities started when the leadership of the NDC in North Tongu realised a low turnout, and fearing that it could affect the final votes to be garnered by the president, quickly dispatched personnel to go and invite the delegates to come and vote.

Sensing that the process was slow owing to the use of the verification machine, the party executives decided that the voters should not be verified biometrically.

The polling stations where this breach occurred, according to our investigations, included Kluma, Juapong Textiles Limited (JTL), Podoe, Avedzi, Adexortoe, Adenyime, Agorxor, Avedete, Sokpekope, Kpomkpo, Mataheko, Water Works, and Ayram, all the towns and villages at Juapong Traditional area in North Tongu constituency.

This paper discovered from its investigations that the news of people voting without biometric verification on Saturday’s presidential primaries was same in towns and villages in Battor, Aviyeme, Mepe, Volor, Podoe, Dorfor and Fordzorku as the leadership of the NDC ordered officers of the EC to allow some people to voteYES for President Dramani Mahama without biometric verification of their fingers.

Interestingly, some concerned party members protested at the development, saying it amounted to complete violation of electoral laws of the NDC.

Today was also reliably informed that the leadership of the NDC moved to various polling station centres in Battor and Aveyime to order officials of the EC to postpone the voting process to Sunday, November 22, 2015 due to the poor turnout of the electorate.

And as at the time of filling this report on Monday, November 23, 2015, officials of the EC had still not declared the results of the presidential polls for North Tongu as the leadership of the NDC in the constituency was accused of hijacking the results to prevent any form of embarrassment.

Upon further probing, it was discovered that the ongoing legal tussle in court over the disqualification of one of the contestants, Mr. Christopher Kofi Eleblu, appeared to have angered the electorate.

Today gathered that the low turnout was not limited to the North Tongu constituency alone but also some constituencies like Central and South Tongu experienced same.