gazzeted polling stations. Finally, the petitioners alleged that not all pages
in some Forms 34B were signed.
[338] In response thereto, the 1st respondent argued that Regulation 83
only provides for signing of the forms and that there is no obligation
flowing from this Regulation that requires a returning officer to indicate
his/her name while signing. Similarly, the 1st respondent argued, that the
law does not require that all pages should be signed. Regarding the claim
that many forms were signed by the same person in similar handwriting,
contrary to Regulation 5 (1A)(a), the respondent contended that the said
claim had not been backed by evidence from a hand-writing expert. As for
some Forms 34A having originated from un-gazetted polling stations, the
respondent dismissed such a claim on grounds that there were no such
polling stations.
[339] The petitioners further claimed that there were numerous
discrepancies between the results declared in Forms 34A and 34B from
various polling stations across the Country, contrary to Section 39 of the
Elections Act, as read with Regulation 82 of the Regulations thus
compromising the integrity of the election. In response, the respondents,
countered the accuracy in some of the allegations by providing contrary
figures through a number of deponents. However, the 1st respondent also
admitted that indeed there were discrepancies in the results in Forms 34A
and 34B spread across the Country but attributed the discrepancies to
human errors and fatigue of officials. The respondent contended that the
discrepancies in question did not in any event affect the result of the
election.
Presidential
Petition
No.
1
of
2017
��
146
|
P a g e
Select target paragraph3
Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents