Wakanda News Details

Any advice tendered to GECOM by Chief Election Officer utilising unverified and unreconciled votes will transgress recount order

They range from ensuring that an entry is made in the poll book attesting to the fact that upon the first opening of the ballot box, there were no ballot papers or other papers therein (section 68(a) to placing the different category of ballots into separate envelopes section 83(5), (6) to making up in separate packets the official list of electors or part thereof, notices of appointments to vote as proxies, copies of the lists of proxies, the poll book and other election documents.

The ballot box and the statutory documents are then delivered to the returning officer of the district in which the polling place is situated section 83(10) (c).

Fundamentally, it provides for a recount of the ballots cast in all the electoral districts coupled with a reconciliation with a menu of statutory documents way beyond the select few identified by section 89(1)(b) .

It would follow that the absence of these statutory documents or where there is excess or missing ballots in a box, the resulting inability to balance that box suggests that there was noncompliance by the statutory officers with the provisions and/or SOP of GECOM that mandate the performance of certain obligations in relation to the said documents and or the electoral process of GECOM has been compromised.

It would follow that where these documents cannot be found for reconciliation and scrutiny in compliance with the Order legislated by GECOM and where there is excess or missing ballots, the data in relation to the corresponding ballot boxes would not escape the cloud that questions its accuracy and consequently will be unlawful for their failure to comply with the Order.

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