How we intercepted 1 million extra ballots for the Ashanti region – Afriyie Ankrah

• The NDC’s vigilance helped thwart a vote rigging plot in the Ashanti Region during the 2020 polls

• The NDC also wants the EC to carefully consider their electoral reform proposals

The National Democratic Congress’ Director of Elections, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, has spoken about how the party intercepted and caused the destruction of over a million extra ballot papers that were heading for the Ashanti Region in the 2020 elections.

He credited the discovery of the papers to the vigilance and knowledge of NDC agents whiles narrating the circumstances that led to the episode on August 31, 2021; the edition of GTV’s Breakfast Show programme.

He said despite the elections have ended, he still had video evidence of what he insisted was a calculated effort to influence the votes in the NPP’s stronghold.

“One of the printing houses, that is was where Ashanti Region ballots were printed. When the printing is done, they are now packaged and recorded and we all sign for it, then it is sent to the region.

“When it is sent to the region, they will also check and confirm that they have received “x” amount of ballot papers from this region, for this constituency etc. When that is done, then the remaining ballot papers are burnt and thrashed.

“Then they give you a certificate of disposal signed by all the political parties that we have finished printing and these are the ballots that have been disposed of…,” he explained.

According to him, the team had to return from Kumasi to Accra after a mistake was discovered with the PNC candidate’s photo, he said they needed to come purposefully to reprint papers for the affected constituency alone.

“We came back to the printing house and our guys saw a pack of ballot papers, covered, bound in brown envelopes. We checked and there were over one million extra ballots for Ashanti Region alone.

“We asked and the woman got confused and said they were for runoff. So we said how can you have a runoff for all the 12 candidates? So we called the Electoral Commission and… eventually, we had to insist and we burned them, and I have evidence of that,” he added.

The discussion on the programme centred largely on the NDC’s reform proposals to the EC following its internal review of the 2020 elections. Afriyie Ankrah tasked the commission to review the report dispassionately and engage without any prejudice.