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Deputy Director of Elections for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Daniel Amartey Mensah has called on the Electoral Commission (EC) to come out with the roadmap to make it possible to declare the results of the 2020 general election within 24 hours.

According to him, it is important for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) and Ghanaians in general to have a fair idea how the Electoral Commission (EC) intends to achieve its agenda of declaring the results within 24 hours after the election.

The Director of Electoral Services of the Election Commission, Dr Serebour Quaicoe, has said plans are underway to ensure there is no undue delay 24 hours after polls close.

“All things being equal, we are hoping that before we go to bed on the 8th of December, we would have come out with the presidential results,” he said in an interview with Joy News.

He added that just like the 2016 elections, “we will use the manual transmission” in this year’s election.
 
“The polling stations will submit the results to the constituency, the constituency will send their results to the region and the region will fax the results to us,” he clarified.

Commenting on the intention of the Electoral Commission (EC) on Okay FM’s 'Ade Akye Abia' Morning Show, Mr Amartey Mensah demanded that the Commission comes out clearly to take the political parties especially the NDC through the process of collating and eventually declaring the results within its projected time.

“The Electoral Commission (EC) should give us the roadmap as to how it will be able to collate all the results at various centres and then declare the winner within the 24 hours. The EC should tell us; they should take us through it so that we can all understand them,” he demanded.

Meanwhile, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, Director of Elections for the NDC addressing a press conference in Accra on Wednesday has stated emphatically that the agenda of the Electoral Commission (EC) to declare the results within 24 hours is unattainable as it will end up in giving unrealistic results.

“What is the basis for this claim, what mechanism, structures and systems have you put in place to ensure that this claim that you’re making you’ll be able to meet without having any problems. How does it work in practical terms? An election is a process; results are declared at the polling station. Those results move from the polling station to the constituency collation centre, from the constituency collation centre you have now created another layer at the regional level. Then from the regional level to the national level. And especially for the Presidential ballot, the Electoral Commission herself is supposed to be the Chief Returning Officer. By this process is she saying that she’s going to see every single result from all the 275 constituencies before she makes a declaration? Can’t you see the danger here? Is she going to rely on only the 16 regions?

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