EC boss apologizes for failing to declare presidential results within 24 hours

The Electoral Commission (EC) says it is sorry for failing to live up to its pledge to, within 24 hours, declare the results of the 2020 parliamentary and presidential election.

Chairperson of the Commission, Madam Jean Mensa says her inability to deliver as scheduled was due to events she had no control over.

Earlier, the Commission had said it had introduced more efficient measures which will facilitate the declaration of election results within 24 hours because, in this year’s polls, the National Collation Centre in Accra is only receiving collated presidential election results from 16 regions as opposed to results from 275 constituencies as has been the case in the past.

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But the EC ultimately missed this deadline.

Mrs. Mensa has however cited rains and other major challenges at some collation centres which made transportation and filing of constituency results as a major glitch to meeting the timeline.

“We thought that it will be important to brief you on some issues that had arisen in the course of this work. I am referring particularly to the Commission’s inability to declare the results as planned at 5 pm today. The Commission had intended and indicated its willingness to declare the 2020 presidential election within 24 hours after the general election. However, we experienced quite a number of challenges making it difficult for us to fulfil this promise. What had happened was the unexpected rain occurred in many parts of the country yesterday resulting in a number of our voting interruptions so long after voting, some centres had to continue with voting which led to delays and the subsequent declaration of results,” she said at a midnight presser on Wednesday.

While showing remorse over the development, she explained that “naturally, this had an impact on our plans in the sense that our officers could not collate the results and forward them to the appropriate locations as planned. Secondly, we also experienced some challenges with the regions particularly some areas in the hinterlands, Western North to be precise. It was difficult for our officers to travel to the regional capitals and to send the results there. We express our regret for our inability to declare the results at 5 pm on Tuesday as planned.”

Source: Citinewsroom