The Electoral Commission has noted allegations by the National Democratic Congress
(NDC) purporting that the Commission’s directive to deactivate the Barometric
Verification Devices (VDS) constitutes an illegality as deactivation would destroy
evidence related to verified voters for the 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary
Elections.
The Electoral Commission categorically states that these assertions are FALSE.
The Commission has carefully preserved and safeguarded all electronic and physical
records and data relating to the 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections.
It is also instructive to note that the BVDs were only ACTIVATED prior to their use for
the Elections as a safeguard to ensure that no one was verified before the start of
Polls. Similarly, at the close of Polls, the BvDs were DEACTIVATED to prevent any
potential mischief of persons being verified after the close of Polls.
The process of deactivation is therefore meant 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.
This was demonstrated during an Inter-Party Advisory Committee (1PAC) meeting held
on Wednesday, 2nd December, 2020. The meeting was attended by representatives
of the Political Parties including Mr. Peter Boamah Otokunor (Deputy General
Secretary) and Mr. Daniel Amartey (Deputy Director, Elections) of the NDC, Civil
Society Organizations and Development Partners. The demonstration of the BVD was
prompted by a similar allegation by the NDC that the deactivation of BVDs would result
in the loss of data.
It is therefore unfortunate that the NDC would continue to make such misleading
allegations.
We reassure the General Public that all data generated before, during and after the
Election has been preserved and ill be made available to any interested party in a
transparent manner when requested through the laid down process
ELECTORAL COMMISSION
.
