The Elections Coordinating Committee (ECC) Liberia’s largest domestic observer network has announced the deployment of Eighty Nine (89) short term observers and County Coordinators ahead of the Voter Roll Update for the December 8, 2020 Senatorial Elections and National Referendum .
Seven three (73) of the 89 observers will be assigned to the seventy three (73) electoral districts with one observer assigned to an electoral district and will follow all the processes of the voter roll update.
The County Coordinators will supervise the work of the District Observers, an ECC press release said on Wednesday, September 9, 2020.
In preparation for the deployment, the ECC over the weekend conducted training for all observers from the fifteen counties who will observe six of the fifteen days period for the voter roll update exercise.
The ECC Observers will monitor the voter roll update process to ensure electoral integrity and credibility in the process.
The Chairman of the Elections Coordinating Committee Oscar Bloh in a statement issued in Monrovia Wednesday said: “the observers recruited are non-partisans and have worked with the ECC during the 2017 General and Presidential Elections.
According to the ECC, the report from the voter roll update will be generated using a checklist and critical incident forms. There will be a periodic release of provisional statements on the quality and Inclusiveness of the process.
The observers will use mobile phones and checklists to collect and share information through a database system setup at the ECC secretariat where the report will be generated based on the information from the observers.
The ECC will then release a final report on the update process that will highlight where there are successes, challenges and areas that have the potential to ignite conflict.
In another development, the ECC condemns the recent violence that characterized the primary of the Collaborating Political Parties (CPP) that was held in Nimba County. Planned violence and intimidation are intended to influence the outcomes of elections and this undermines free, fair and competitive electoral processes. The ECC calls on the leadership of the CPP to work with the police to ensure that those who were involved in the violence are held to account for their action.
The Elections Coordinating Committee (ECC) is a civil society platform, comprising six (6) organizations that observe elections in Liberia. Center for Democratic Governance (CDG); Center for Media Studies and Peace Building (CEMESP); Institute for Research and Democratic Development (IREDD); NAYMOTE-Partners for Democratic Development (NAYMOTE-PADD); West Africa Network for Peace Building (WANEP), and the Women’s NGO Secretariat of Liberia (WONGOSOL).
The ECC works in partnership with the Liberia Accountability Voice Initiative (LAVI) with support from USAID.
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