Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, running mate to Nana Akuffo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2012 general election, on Thursday made a second appearance before the Supreme Court over his party’s election petition.
He told the court that if all the irregularities associated with the election should be annulled Nana Akuffo-Addo would win by 58.37 per cent as against 40.29 per cent for John Dramani Mahama.
Continuing with his evidence Dr Bawumia said the statistical implication of annulments due to violations, malpractice and irregularities of the 11,138 polling stations would have amounted to 4,381,145 and that Nana Akuffo-Addo would have won by 58.37 per cent
Dr Bawumia said the issue of over voting, voting without biometric verification, no signature of the presiding officer or their assistant, and same serial numbers for different polling stations accounted for 99 per cent of the irregularities.
He said each of these four categories on their own if taken into account would materially affect the results of the election declared by the Electoral Commission (EC).
He said if votes from the 1826 polling stations with over votes are annulled, John Mahama would have 49.3 per cent of valid votes and Nana Akufo Addo would have 49.1 per cent.
Dr Bawumia explained that if votes from the 2,240 polling stations where voting without biometric verification occurred are annulled, John Mahama would have 49.1 per cent of valid votes and Nana Akufo Addo would have 49.3 per cent.
If votes from the 9,921 polling stations where the same serial numbers were used for different polling stations are annulled, John Mahama would have 41.9 per cent of valid votes and Nana Akufo Addo would have 56.6 per cent
The second petitioner said if votes from the 1,826 polling stations where voting without biometric verification occurred are annulled, John Mahama would have 49.5 per cent of valid votes and Nana Akufo-Addo would have 48.9 per cent.
Dr Bawumia said investigations had revealed that results at polling stations where over voting and voting without biometric verification occurred are annulled, John Mahama would have 48.06 per cent valid votes and Nana Akufo Addo would have 50.4 per cent.
“If votes from polling stations where over voting, voting without biometric verification and no signature of the presiding officer occurred are annulled, John Mahama would have 47.01 per cent of valid votes and Nana Akufo-Addo would have 51.53 per cent, “he said.
Mr Tony Lithur, Counsel for President Mahama raised an objection to the witness tendering an updated table showing the polling stations affected by the irregularities.
He said petitioners did not plead the updated table in their affidavits and prayed the court to refuse the witness with making his analysis based on the document.
Mr James Quarshie Idun, Counsel for the EC also supported the objection and stated that the petitioners were indirectly amending their case without making a copy for the respondents to ask questions on it.
Mr Tsatsu Tsikata, Counsel for National Democratic Congress who agreed with the objection said the petitioners were contradicting the document the witness is testifying to in their affidavits.
He said though the rules allow the petitioners to amend their pleadings, they cannot do so whiles the witness is testifying and that they must do the proper thing.
Mr Philip Addison, Counsel for Petitioners insisted that they were not amending the pleadings but abandoning part of the evidence.
However, the court after a recess overruled the objection and allowed the witness to continue with his evidence.
Mr Lithur, who cross examined Dr Bawumia on the statutory and constitutional irregularities that he alleged impacted on the December 2012 election, pointed out that some of the evidence the NPP presented before the court were doubled.
Dr Bawumia insisted that the repeated evidence were not added to the analysis the party made on the elections figures.
Even when Mr Lithur tried to persuade the court that the pink sheets that the petitioners presented were duplicated, Dr Bawumia flatly denied those claims and said he would explain the process when the time comes.
Even as the respondents showed him documents from their pack of ‘pink sheets’ to establish that “we have been engaged in double counting” he indicated there has not been double counting.