In a detailed preliminary statement on the May 11th general elections, the US-based Carter Center said that PPP/C agents failed to produce their copies of Statements of Poll (SoPs) from 21 stations that they were challenging.
It was the first insight publicized by any of the observer groups to the May 11 polls on the challenge to Statements of Poll which the now opposition PPP/C is using to argue was evidence of rigging against it.
A comparison of SoPs in the hands of the various party agents would usually dispel any concerns about tampering with the vote tallies.
The Atlanta, Georgia-based center which gave the elections a clean bill of health, released a 27-page statement yesterday in which it addressed all aspects of the process and referred to one encounter with the PPP/C on the controversial SoPs.
The PPP/C has been claiming that some SoP’s carried incorrect information and that the corresponding ballot boxes would also illustrate this. The PPP/C was not successful in gaining access to documents that it has requested from GECOM following the May 11 general elections and its call for a recounting of all of the votes was also rejected.
In its statement yesterday, the Carter Center said that days after the May 11 election, the Center learned, and GECOM acknowledged, that some fraudulent Statements of Poll had been created and inserted into GECOM national tabulation. However, GECOM easily identified the fakes and did not process them. Carter Center observers, the statement said, did not report any significant irregularities during the post-election tabulation and verification of results phase.
On May 13, the statement noted that the PPP/C requested recounts in Regions 1, 2, and 8. There was initial confusion among the political parties and GECOM on whether recounts could occur prior to the declaration of district results. By the end of the day, it said that the consensus appeared to be that recount requests must await the declaration of district results. Nevertheless, returning officers approved and conducted limited recounts in Regions 2 and 7. It said that in Region Seven, the Returning Officer recounted six of 13 ballot boxes and no errors were detected.
The Carter Center noted that all returning officers declared their results at various times on May 14, with the exception of Region 4, where the results were declared in the early hours of Friday, May 15. Given that there is an opportunity until noon on the day following the declaration to seek a recount, the final declaration in Region 4 could not be made until this deadline had expired on May 16.
“Carter Center observers were present for the verification of results in Region 4, at which officials representing the returning officer and party representatives compared the district SoPs with the results the parties collected from polling stations and reproduced on their own tabulation spreadsheets.
During verification, the PPP/C identified 21 polling stations where it claimed that the party’s results differed from those of the returning officer. The procedure observed was for these queries to be noted and subsequently reviewed once all SoPs were reviewed. On the morning of the 15th, when the returning officer reconvened the verification process to address the queries, Carter Center observed that PPP/C agents did not produce the copies of its SoPs to compare with those of the returning officers. Lacking evidence with which to resolve the party’s queries, the returning officer proceeded to declare the regional results”, the statement said.
The Carter Center noted that the PPP/C sought general recounts of all ballot boxes in all districts. “The requests were based on four principal allegations: that valid ballots had been rejected; that votes cast exceeded the number of electors; that SoPs contained errors of arithmetic; and that GECOM received fraudulent SOPs.
With the exceptions noted above, returning officers rejected the general recount requests in all regions, and GECOM announced the final results on May 16. No data on results has yet been published on the GECOM website. The final figures, including turnout and rejected votes, are currently unavailable”, the Center noted.
