We’re not destroying 2020 polls data – EC

The Electoral Commission (EC) has described as “false”, a claim by the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) that its deactivation of the Biometric Verification Devices (BVDs) used for the 2020 polls, is a ploy to delete data on them.

The EC’s comment is a response to an earlier statement by the NDC’s Director of Elections, Mr. Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, in which he said the directive to deactivate the BVDs was “illegal” because Regulation 47 (3) of CI 127 states that: ‘The Commission shall, subject to the provisions of these Regulations, (a) retain for a year, documents forwarded to the Commission; and (b) destroy the documents after a year unless otherwise directed by a court’.

But the EC, in its response, assured Ghanaians that the data were safe, explaining that deactivation process is “to preserve the sanctity of the verification data on the BVD and does not delete it.”

“As a matter of fact, several copies of the verification data are kept on the BVD,” the statement noted.

“It is, therefore, unfortunate that the NDC would continue to make such misleading allegations”, the election management body added.

A few days ago, the defeated presidential candidate of the NDC, former President John Mahama, who is contesting the results of the polls, sounded a note of caution to the EC against deleting the data.

According to him, the biggest opposition party is auditing all the pink sheets to prove its point that the Chair of the EC, Mrs Jean Mensa, “stole the people’s verdict” for President Nana Akufo-Addo and the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP).

“We want to send a caution to the EC that in line with Regulation 47 of CI 127, they should ensure that election data is preserved for a year, after elections”, Mr Mahama told party supporters in an address on Thursday.

“Let me assure our teeming supporters and millions of Ghanaians who voted for this change, which has been stolen – the real stolen verdict – that we are beefing up capacity in the constituencies, where the ruling NPP is seeking to overturn our parliamentary victories already chalked”, the former President said.

“We are deploying an additional crack team of lawyers and senior party officials to support them. Also, in order not to leave any further infractions unaccounted for, the NDC will continue its meticulous audit of all presidential pink sheets to ensure that the verdict of the people is upheld.

“These steps will surely lead to our next line of actions within the constraints of our democratic governance process”, he added.