Deputy Director of IT Services at the University of Ghana Information Technology Directorate (UGITD), Patrick Kuti, has rejected allegations that the University’s electronic voting system is manipulated during Student Representative Council (SRC) elections.
His comments follow claims by some students and student leaders over the years that the Directorate operates a hidden “backend” through which election results can be altered.
Speaking during a discussion on “Allegations of Vote Buying and Election Rigging within the University of Ghana” on the Parliament on Air show on Radio Univers, Mr. Kuti explained that the Directorate only takes responsibility for the electronic voting platform after the UGSRC Electoral Commission completes the nomination and vetting processes.
“The UGITD where I work as the Deputy Director in charge of IT services do not play any role during nomination and opening of polls. These are student activities. We firstly engage with the SRC EC with all candidates and sometimes they come with their agents, and we explain what these processes involve. Questions are asked and these questions are answered. So, the date of the election will be determined and the ITD will work independently towards the setup of the system for the election,” he explained.
Mr. Kuti further stated that results are generated automatically once polls close, without manual collation, and challenged anyone with credible evidence of technological manipulation to present it to the Directorate for investigation.
“Immediately the election closes, no one goes to collate. It’s all automated right there and then it shows based on how student voted, the numbers and the percent each candidate got and then the election is declared. Anyone who has credible information of rigging as a result of the technology that we use should come to the ITD, demonstrate whatever you found and if we see one person that can demonstrate any rigging or anything that is not credible, we’ll hold the election,” he challenged.
Mr. Kuti also recounted a previous instance in which the Directorate suspended an election after detecting cases of voter impersonation involving some student associations.
“We’ve ever cancelled an election before; we had to stop it. We learned that some of the student association, when the first years came, would ask who they are doing the registration to bring a copy of the admission letter, which had their student ID and PIN. So, students started complaining that by the time they got into the system to cast their ballot, somebody had voted,” he recounted.
He explained that the incident led to the introduction of additional security measures, including unique voting tokens sent to students’ institutional email addresses and linked to their phone numbers.
“When this came, we found it credible, investigated, tracked and got those who were involved in that practice and the election was cancelled. So that is how we introduced a second layer, the token system, so having somebody’s student ID and PIN then wasn’t enough for you to vote,” he added.
Meanwhile, former UGSRC General Secretary aspirant, Micheline Asempapa, has called on the UGSRC Electoral Commission to intensify voter education on the University’s electronic voting system.
She argued that providing students and candidates with adequate information about the system ahead of the elections would help reduce misinformation and speculation while improving confidence in the electoral process.
“I personally feel that the EC is not doing its work properly because all this information, most students, even candidates don’t have such knowledge about them because personally using the IT system has reduced their workload. I think they should seize this opportunity before we go into the filing of nomination. This is the time they’re supposed to educate even the aspirants, educate the public so that no one will speculate because if they don’t do their work, there’s no way to help the situation,” she said.
The discussion comes ahead of the 2025/26 UGSRC elections, with calls for greater voter education and clearer communication from the Electoral Commission to improve students’ understanding of the electronic voting system and strengthen confidence in the electoral process.
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Story by Oliver Arthur Acorlor | univers.ug.edu.gh
Edited by Erica Odeenyin Odoom
