Charlotte Osei, EC Chairperson
The Electoral Commission has said its results transmitted electronically were tampered with leading to a delay in the release of presidential results of last week’s election.
According to a Deputy Chairperson of the Commission, Georgina Opoku Amankwaa, the figures kept changing anytime they were keyed into the system.
They therefore had to completely abandon the electronic transmission system, she said in an interview Wednesday.
The elections management body kept the nation on tenterhooks several hours after polls ended on Wednesday without a single certified presidential results.
In the absence of the certified results came declarations of victory by the NPP and cruising to victory pronouncements by the NDC.
The media also announced provisional results from polling stations and collation centres, creating a chaotic atmosphere for supporters who did not know which of the figures and declarations to believe.
After almost 12 hours after the polls, the EC chair Mrs Charlotte Osei organised a press conference claiming their electronic transmission system had been “compromised” for which reason they had to rely on manual system of transmission.
Not a single constituency results was certified to be announced at the time of the press conference.
Simultaneously, the EC’s twitter handle reported that the EC website had been hacked and called on the hackers to “respect the integrity and independence of the EC.”
After 72 hours the EC Chair finally declared the results of the elections and announced the opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo as president elect.
Not long after the declaration, the Deputy Communications Director of the EC Yusif Ayuba denied assertion the EC system was hacked but admitted there were challenges with it. He did not exactly say what the challenges were.
His boss, a deputy Commissioner Georgina Opoku Amankwaa, has however explained the challenges in an interview on GTV Wednesday night.
“Our electronic transmission was not even coming. You key in, and the figures will change. You key in and the figures will change. Then we said no, we can’t go on with this. Let’s abandon it.
“The good thing was that was not the primary source. So it was good for us to abandon it.
“The only problem was that it caused us some delay. We could have done that much earlier than what we did,” she stated.
-Myjoyonline