It’s Day 12 of the substantive hearing on the Presidential Election Petition and Day five of cross examination of the second petitioner by counsel for the third respondent Tsatsu Tsikata.
1000 The Judges have taken their seats and so have the counsel on all sides.
Philip Addison introduces his team of lawyers; James Quarshie Idun lead counsel for the EC does same and so does Tony Lithur and Tsatsu Tsikata.
Dr Mahamudu Bawumia takes his seat in the witness box and reminded of his oath.
1010 Tsikata is up and continues his cross examination of the witness. On the last adjourned date he handed Bawumia a list of 64 pink sheet exhibits in which he insists there is no case of over voting as alleged by the petitioners.
Bawumia began sorting them out but could not finish before the presiding judge as well as the parties agreed to an adjournment.
Bawumia therefore continues probing into the list. After perusing the list, Bawumia says a number of the exhibits have taken from the category of over-voting. Tsikata asks if the witness will admit that he was not truthful in his affidavits he swore to the court.
Bawumia retorts and says at the time of swearing the affidavits he was convinced there was over-voting but upon further auditing of the figures he realized that they did not fall within the category of over-voting but still had other forms of irregularities.
Bawumia however insists that on one of the pink sheet exhibits there was over voting. He haggles with Tsikata over a figure. Bawumia the figure is 397 but Tsikata says the seven has been cancelled and 8 in its place which therefore brings the total to 398.
NB When the figure 398 is used, there will be no case of over voting because the total number of ballots cast in that polling station will be the same as the ballot papers issued. However Bawumia insists the 397 is the actual figure which means the total votes cast will be one more than the number of ballots issued and a clear case of over-voting.
Presiding Judge Atuguba asks witness to tally the figures on the face of the pink sheet and tell the court what the figure is. Bawumia does that and tells the court the figure is 397 and not 398 as Tsikata would have the court believe.
Tsikata raises another pink sheet on which Bawumia insists there was over voting. He asks the witness to tell the court on which basis he makes the allegation of over voting.
Bawumia tells the court that the space C1 (which is the space on the pink sheet for the total of ballots issued) has been left blank. He says that is a clever way of hiding over-voting because nobody can determine how many votes were issued and compare it to the total votes cast.
Tsikata suggests that leaving a place blank does not mean there is over-voting. Bawumia retorts and says that is the opinion of the counsel. Tsikata says the blank space may just be an error; an error that even the petitioners have committed in filling their affidavits. Bawumia admits there are errors but those errors do not affect somebody’s presidency. But the error on the face of the pink sheet had the propensity of affecting somebody’s presidency.
Tsikata gets to another pink sheet sheet exhibit in which the petitioner maintains there is over voting. Tsikata maintains there was a genuine error in filling of the pink sheet and could therefore not be described as a case of over voting. He says even if there was over voting, the petitioners have their agents who appended their signature to certify the results.
Bawumia says the genuine error resulted in over voting. He maintains that merely signing the pink sheet by the polling agent does not make the illegality legal.
Tsikata brings out a guide to election and the role of the polling agent and asks witness to read the relevant portions. Bawumia reads. Tsikata fires asking did the polling agent do what was required of them? Bawumia says they did it to the best of their ability. Tsikata asks if witness is happy with the performance of the polling agent and whether or not he can confirm that the polling agent raised any protest about any irregularity. Bawumia retorts, saying on the face of the pink sheet there is an irregularity and that is all that matters.
There is another case of contrasting figures on the face of pink sheet exhibit. Tsikata insists on that pink sheet the figure is 784 even though the eight in the middle has been cancelled and replaced with seven. Bawumia says the correct figure is 774 and in that case there is over-voting.
Presiding Judge Atuguba asks witness to tabulate the figures and tell the court what figure he will arrive at. Bawumia does that and tells the court the figure is 774.
Tsikata says of course if there is an initial error in filling the pink sheet it will reflect in the total figure. Bawumia agrees with Tsikata and says those errors will not only affect the figure at that particular polling station but will in the final analysis affect the final declaration of the election which is what has happened.
Tsikata asks witness whether his polling agents had tally sheets of voters and whether they followed the procedures to the letter.
1133 One of the judges draws the attention of Tsikata that his questions on the role of polling agents has been over flogged adding, that will be a decision by the judges to make and not the witness.
Tsikata says, his question was on tally sheet to be used polling agent, which is quite crucial to the conduct of election. He says the petitioners are seeking to annul legitimate votes and that they must be subjected to strict proof in respect of all that happened during voting. He says with the answer on tally sheet they will be able to know if the agents were able to identify if the number of people who came to vote were more than the votes cast.
Atuguba intervenes and subtly agrees with his colleague on the bench. He says the issue of the role of the polling agent has been dealt with but asks counsel to proceed cautiously.