The Electoral Commission (EC) has described as false claims by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) that it is printing pink sheets without serial numbers for the 2016 elections.

Describing the allegations as regrettable, the Commission said the NPP would have been better served raising concerns with it rather than “rush to the media with unfounded claims of non-existent plans to manipulate election results.”

In a statement released on Tuesday, the NPP requested an emergency meeting of the Inter-Party Advisory Committee over the alleged illegality; the printing of pink sheets without serial numbers.

The NPP said it identified the anomaly when it visited Aero Vote, the company contracted to print the pink sheets for this year’s elections. The party in a statement copied to citifmonline.com said it was surprised the company said it had been directed to print the sheets without the serial numbers.

Aero Vote did not speak to NPP on the matter

But in a statement responding to the allegations, the EC said no staff of Aero Vote had made such communications with the NPP.

“We have been informed that no management staff of Aero Vote told officials of the NPP ‘that they have been told not to emboss serial numbers on the pink sheets”. This is an untrue statement. The contract terms and security features on the Pink Sheets as agreed between the Electoral Commission and Aero Vote are clear to the contractual parties.”

The EC also noted that the NPP had no privity of contract with Aero Vote, and thus has no “legal basis for engaging directly with the company (which is a vendor of the EC), on their contractual obligations to the EC.”

Furthermore the printing of the pink sheets is yet to start, according to the Commission.

“The NPP says in its Press Release, that “today [November 15], Aero Vote ….started the printing of the said forms”. Again, this claim is false. Printing of the Forms will start on Thursday, 17 November, 2016,” the statement revealed.

citifmonline.com