Some students of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) are calling on the university authorities to stop using the electronic system of voting to elect their leaders.In their view, the system can be manipulated to inure to the advantage of some candidates at the expense of others. Some candidates have petitioned the KNUST court to declare the results of the recently held SRC elections null and void.
The KNUST court has upheld a petition brought by some candidates who lost in the just ended SRC election. According to the petitioners, the election software provided by the University Information Technology Services (UITS) was breached.
In their petition, they called on the court to restrain the electoral commissioner from declaring the final results on Focus FM, the official radio station of the university.
In an interview with some candidates who spoke with Edward Oppong Marfo on grounds of anonymity, the UITS admitted during a meeting with the Vice Chancellor, Dean of Students and the candidates, that the system was compromised. This has raised a lot of concerns by a cross section of students. Some candidates have therefore filed a suit to the court on allegations of fraud and breach of electoral process.
The case had the EC, Kingsley Quarcoopome and Samuel Amoako Kusi as 1st and 2nd respondents respectively.
The court has upheld the injunction thus giving time for the petitioners to gather their evidence to support their claims.
The voting on Thursday, March 31, 2016 saw Samuel Amoako Kusi as President, Athina Osei Kyeremateng as General Secretary, Sarkodie Gyasi Addo emerged as Treasurer elect and Rosemond Obeng as Women’s Commissioner elect.
In a related development, some students have questioned the credibility of the system used in grading students since the same software can be breached.
