<<Print>>

Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketia, witness for the first and third respondents in the on-going election petition, on Tuesday accused the petitioners and their supporters of acting in bad faith. He said while the supporters of the petitioners are on the streets shouting �Let my vote count�, their lawyers are in court seeking to annul over four million votes of other people. Mr Asiedu Nketia said this during cross-examination by Mr Philip Addison, Counsel for the Petitioners. Mr Asiedu Nketia said when the petitioners were leading in the 2012 elections, they saw nothing wrong with the figures from the EC, till the tide began to turn, and they began losing and then they felt something was wrong. He insisted that there were no over-voting as being claimed by the petitioners in their petition saying the December 2012 elections were free, transparent and fair. He explained that if the ballot issued are more than what is in the box it means that "unidentified materials" have found its place in the box and will therefore be taken out. Mr Asiedu Nketia attributed the issue of the over-voting to clerical errors and wrong entries adding that nobody raised objection at the polling station when the ballots were sorted out and counted. He said people are not searched before voting and there is a possibility of people going into the booth with foreign materials to contaminate the votes. Mr Asiedu Nketia stressed there is the possibility that some unidentified materials could be found in the box but when this is properly sorted, the real ballots would be identified. When asked by Mr Addison what he would say when the total number of ballots exceeds the total number of registered voters at a polling station, he said over voting can only be discussed in relation to the total votes which is in excess to the total number of registered voters. He said though on the face of the pink sheet, shown to him by the Counsel, the number of ballots exceeds the total number of registered voters he did not see it as over voting adding that the entry was done in error. He also denied claims by Mr Addison that the integrity of the elections had been compromised if there are foreign or an unidentified materials in the box. When questioned by Mr Addison as to what constitute the primary records for the elections. Mr Asiedu Nketia mentioned among other documents, the pink sheet saying that it is only the tail end of the pink sheet that is considered important for the presidential results and not the entire pink sheet. He also denied the claims by the NPP that they were not given provisional register saying daily print outs were given to all parties which had all the information on the provisional register. Mr Addison said the �let my vote count campaign� cannot be cited as an example of bad faith because it was launched after the petition was filed. Earlier, Mr Asiedu Nketia brought his evidence in chief to an end after he was led by Mr Tsatsu Tsikata Counsel for third respondent.