THE NATIONAL ELECTIONS Commission (NEC) release phase one of the newly introduced Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) held in Montserrado, Grand Bassa, Grand Cape Mount, Margibi, Gbarpolu and Bomi constituting six of Liberia’s 15 counties.
FROM THE EXERCISE which ran from March 21 to April 9, 2023, the NEC reported that 1, 435, 209 people registered and of this number, 711, 410 were females while 723, 799 were males.
INTERESTINGLY, THE NEC informed the public that the figures are subject to change due to deduplication and or adjudication processes.
THIS UPDATE MIGHT run parallel to the preliminary result of the census from LISGIS with the bigger counties having lower numbers and that will definitely affect the transparency of the elections result is care is not taken.
HOLDING THE LISGIS result for a fact, Grand Kru has the largest population and of the 5.2 million population, Montserrado County which is the largest is reported to have registered 891, 201; a number that might also be subject to change for obvious reasons.
THE QUESTION THEN is that if six counties are accounting for 50.2 percent of the registrants, and phase II counties might just be completing the number to make up 100 percent and that stands around 49.8 percent.
THE NINE COUNTIES to begin the BVR are Lofa, Nimba, Grand Gedeh, Rivercess, Maryland, Grand Kru, Rivergee and Sinoe.
HOWEVER, WHAT IS astonishing to us is the drop in the figure announced above in the number of registrants per county mainly in Montserrado during this present exercise as compared to previous ones of such nature ahead of the Tuesday, 10 October Presidential and Legislative Elections in the country.
DESPITE THE INTRODUCTION of the BVR technology for the first time, some observers attributed this to voter’s appetite or fatigue of not getting dividend of their vote cast for a particular candidate; voters trucking from the urban to rural areas (community) or the lack of interest in the entire electioneering processes.
WHILE OTHER OBSERVERS attributed the low recorded registrants in the first counties to the newly created voter registration centers which are distances from the residents as compared to previous ones used in the three successful elections held from 2005 to 2017 as well as the lack of proper public education to the population.
WHATEVER THE OUTCOME of the phase two exercise, whether it is voters’ loss of voting appetite or fatigue as a result of distances or temporary staff attitude and the duplication of registrants, let it be clear to everyone including political leaders and aspirants that only Liberians will decide the next action for this country.
