On October 17, Commissioner Barsee Leo Kpangbai of the National Elections Commission (NEC) daily press briefing claimed that The Republic of Ghana during its recent elections recorded 10 million invalid votes.
The Claim
His exact words were: “In Ghana, as we speak, there was time in Ghana they had more than 10 million invalid votes, the last election Ghana had.”
Audio of Commissioner Kpangbai making the claim
So far, the NEC has tallied 99.93% results from the total polling places and has recorded 114,597 invalid votes.
He was responding to a question asked by a reporter on the high number of invalid votes recorded from the October 10 Presidential and Legislative Elections despite the NEC claim that it conducted awareness on civic voter’s education across the country.
Rating Justification
LVL Fact checking desk conducted thorough research on this claim including reviewing Ghana’s Electoral Commission and other Ghanaian news outlets.
In Ghana, invalid votes are commonly referred to as rejected ballots. These are votes that do not meet the established criteria for a valid vote and are not counted in the election results.
According to our research, the most recent election in Ghana was held on December 7, 2020.
We found a nine-page report from Ghana’s Electoral Commission regarding the recent election. The report disclosed that on December 7, 2020, over 17 million registered voters were recorded with a 78% voter turnout during the election. On page 5 of the report on the 2020 election, there were 314,901 rejected ballots recorded.
Furthermore, we found an article titled “Rejected ballots: A growing ‘political party’ in Ghana’s democracy” published on Ghanaian news outlet, GhanaWeb. It was published on November 14, 2020 following the elections, indicating that Ghana has a history of recording rejected or invalid votes in its elections since 1992.
Here are the historical figures for rejected ballots in past Ghanaian elections:
- 1992 – 64,354 rejected ballots (3.02%)
- 1996 — 111,108 rejected ballots (1.53%)
- 2000 — (first round): 119,362 rejected ballots (1.8%); Runoff: 104,214 rejected ballots (1.53%)
- 2004 — 188,123 rejected ballots (2.13%)
- 2008 — (first round): 205,438 rejected ballots (2.4%); Runoff: 92,886 rejected ballots (1.02%)
- 2012 — 251,720 rejected ballots
- 2016 – 168,882 rejected ballots (1.54%)
- 2022 — 314,901
Conclusion
Based on our research, we conclude that Commissioner Kpangbai’s claim that Ghana’s recent elections recorded 10 million invalid votes is misleading.
The official data indicates that Ghana recorded 314,901 rejected ballots during the recent elections, making it the highest in the history of the country, but significantly lower than the figure (10 million) mentioned by the NEC Commissioner.
This report was developed with the support of Internews through the USAID Media Activity project. The funder has no say in the editorial decision leading to the production of this content.
