The Ashanti Regional Director of the Electoral Commission (EC), Benjamin Banor-Bio, has denied the claim by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) that its agents at one of the polling stations at the ongoing bye-election were forced to sign the pink sheet form.
He said what happened was a mistake by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) agents at the polling station and that no one was forced to sign any form.
He explained that there are two types of the pink sheets that are signed by every agent at the polling station.
Before the polls are opened, the agents sign one section of the forms to acknowledge the number of ballots issued to the station and the number of voters.
Additionally, he said the agents also sign the form after the ballots have been counted to indicate their presence at the counting.
According to him, what happened Tuesday morning at the polling station “was that after the agents signed the first portion, the presiding officer asked them to write their names on the other form, [and] sign against their names after the close of polls.”
However, he said when the NPP agent wrote his name, he continued to sign his portion.
Mr Banor-Bio said when the EC’s attention was drawn to the issue, “We immediately replaced the pink sheet for them.”
Background
The Ashanti Regional Chairman of the NDC, Augustus Nana Kwasi, accused the Presiding Officer at the Oyoko Methodist Primary School of forcing the NDC agent to sign the pink sheet before the close of polls and asked that the Presiding Officer should be replaced.
The incident happened in the morning during the bye-election to elect a new Member of Parliament for Kumawu.
ALSO READ: