The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has called for the immediate prosecution of an officer of the Electoral Commission (EC), Dery Joseph, who was arrested in the Kintampo South constituency for an electoral offense.

The incident, which occurred at the Ampesika-Bayere polling station, involved the issuance of 15 defective ballot papers to voters.

Addressing the press on Saturday, spokesperson for the Bawumia Campaign, Dennis Miracles Aboagye, said the issuance of defective ballots was a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise voters intending to cast their ballots for the NPP presidential candidate.

He condemned the act and described it as a “very worrying situation.”

“It is quite worrying that even in 2024 we still have the NDC trying to perceive such crude ways of manipulating our elections, and the NPP is calling for Joseph Dery’s immediate prosecution, because whatever he's done, clearly was a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise the Ghanaian people and the Ghanaian voter and to deny them their fundamental human rights to vote,” he said.

Mr Aboagye further praised the vigilance of their polling agents and party members, who quickly identified the anomaly and reported it to the Ghana Police Service, leading to the arrest of the EC officer.

The party also accused the National Democratic Congress (NDC) of attempting to manipulate the election through crude tactics, urging vigilance across polling stations to prevent similar incidents.

“The NDC’s actions to manipulate the elections in such crude ways must stop. We have a robust monitoring system, and anyone caught engaging in such actions will face the full force of the law,” he added.