The Public Relations Officer of the Electoral Commission of the University of Ghana Student’s Representative Council, Bright Siaw says aggrieved candidates who petitioned the commission for an audit of the 2022 SRC elections have been given an ultimatum to show up with their IT personnel after they failed to appear with them in the last meeting.
Speaking to Universnews after a scheduled meeting between the Electoral Commission, the University of Ghana Computing System and the petitioners, Bright Siaw indicated that the petitioners said they could not get an IT personnel on time due to the short notice given to them.
Today the meeting came off as scheduled but unfortunately the aggrieved candidates could not come with their expert and the explanation, they gave was that the notice was short but then the aggrieved candidates, the workers at UGCS and the electoral commission were present.
The Public Relations Officer however mentioned that the candidates were allowed to probe the spreadsheet without their IT expert.
The Spreadsheet was displayed on the screen bearing the fact that the experts were not around, the aggrieved candidates themselves examine the spreadsheet however not from the expert lens. Some observations were made and one of them has to do with having one IP address voting for over 500 students. The explanation from the workers from UGCS was that whenever students log in with the student Wi-fi, they have programmed the router in a way that the router comes with a single IP address. They also made another observation where there was a single device with the same IP address which wasn’t a student Wi-fi or a Wi-Fi on campus but the same device and IP address voting for 48 students. On election day one student complained with evidence that they have voted on his behalf so he used that student’s unique code, unique link and a token.
He further explained how the voting system works.
Normally when UGCS sends us the link for voting, it comes with a token, so we entered that token and searched into the spreadsheet and we noticed that there was a particular device that voted for that student who complained. As to whether indeed someone voted on the student’s behalf, we have not yet substantial that but then the device that voted for the student also voted for other students and in all were 48 students. That single device has the same IP address so it was conflicting with using the student Wi-Fi to give you the same IP address and now using a device outside the school or using another network. It is expected that if you are using another network, you wouldn’t find a single device casting for 48 students. The officers at UGCS noted that it could be illegal in the sense that the one who voted might have had access to students’ admission letters, thereby having access to students’ email, ID and pin they might have been able to log in to the student’s email to vote. Though it’s not a problem from UGCS but outside UGCS you will realize that, some persons tried to take advantage of students, particularly first years.
Meanwhile, Bright Siaw said a meeting has been rescheduled for Wednesday, November 16 for the candidates to come with their IT expert.
In the end, we agreed that tomorrow Wednesday, November 16 at noon, we will allow the candidates to bring in their expert and that is their last chance. We gave them an opportunity today but they could not take advantage of it. If tomorrow you are unable to bring in your expert that will be the end.
