How difficult is it to cheat Liberia elections?
By Frank Sainworla, Jr. fsainworla@yahoo.com
Since this elections year started, the National Elections Commission (NEC) has gone all out to assure political parties and Liberians that it is committed to conducting free, fair, credible and transparent elections.
In a recent interview with the Public Trust Media Group (PTMG)/LMDI elections radio program, NEC Chairman Jerome Korkoya said “it’s not possible for anyone to cheat or to take somebody’s vote,” as Liberia’s polling regime is rigid.
The D-day is just hours away, Tuesday October 10, 2017, when some 2.1 million registered voters are due to cast their ballots for 20 presidential candidates. Hundreds of others are also vying for the 73 seats in the House of Representatives.
“The neutrality of the NEC is manifested through its history of operations. All you have to do is just look from 2005 to date. All of the elections that this commission has conducted have not only been certified as credible by not only local people but international people.
“And I can tell you that this commission has credible people. There is nobody in this commission that operates on a partisan basis. That is absolutely out of here. It is strictly in the law,” Chairman Korkoya explained.
Some candidates, parties and other civil society groups have in recent days raised questions over the NEC’s decision to print 800 thousand excess ballots, qualms Chairman Jerome Korkoya dispelled. He clarified that the surplus ballots were for contingency purposes and in line with international best practice.
In addition to apprehensions over a recent “secret” meeting President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf reportedly held with NEC officials and 19 elections Magistrates at her private residence, there are concerns over delay in publishing the final voter roll.
According to Section 3.19 of the New Election Law of Liberia: “No Registration Roll may be altered within the thirty (30) days period immediately prior to an election, including Election Day, except upon order of the Honourable Supreme Court of Liberia on the determination of a manifest error.”
Speaking with confidence, Korkoya explained, “Our work here, our 100% commitment is to observe the law, remain neutral and conduct a free, fair, transparent process as we have always done. We have no intention to deviate from that tradition.”
Tough control measures
Outlining the various tiers of Liberia’s elections regime, the head of the national electoral body said there were “rigid control measures in place.”
“It’s not possible, it’s not possible. Somebody may have ill intent, like individuals (nobody is God). But the system we have in place, it’s not possible for anybody to cheat or to take somebody’s vote and give to the other one,” he asserted.
Korkoya, who has so far managed several by-elections and a national special senatorial election amidst the devastation Ebola virus outbreak, further explained that the first control mechanism in place is that every polling center in Liberia will have the same number of ballots.
Secondly, he said at every polling or registration center in Liberia, the total number of registrants there will be produced in soft and hard copies and distributed to every political parties.
In line with the country’s elections law, NEC has requested all political parties and Independent candidates to send their poll watchers to all 5,000 polling centers across Liberia during the October 10 polls.
On elections day, he said the third control measure is that every political party or independent candidate is represented at the polling places, besides the presence of independent election observers.
Then, there is a transparent ballot box that is sealed, but before it gets sealed, it’s emptied and displayed to everybody. And that box is sealed and that seal cannot be broken
“Everybody there takes the number. At the end of the poll, political party agents look for spoilt ballots and cross check. And after the final count, the ballot box is then sealed and party agents and polling center officers will sign and then the result at each center will be pasted on the wall of the center and later sent to the NEC headquarters national tally center for the final tallying of results,” the NEC boss stated.
Already, thousands of international and local election observers are being deployed around Liberia for next Tuesday’s polls from the African Union European Union (AU), ECOWAS, European Union (EU) and the United States.
And they are all expected to closely monitor the entire electoral process of Liberia’s historic and crucial elections, which is due to mark the first peaceful hand over of power from one democratically elected government to another since 1944.
In a statement, one of the election observation groups, the EU said, “After the closure of voting, the observers will follow the counting, result-tabulation process, paying attention to whether there is a transparent, accurate and prompt transfer, tabulation and publication of results.”
“The Missions´ initial findings will be delivered in a preliminary statement, which will be presented in a press conference shortly after elections day. A Final Report that will also include recommendations will be presented at a later stage,” the EU statement added.
This West African state of Liberia, Africa’s first independent nation, has gone through decades of political instability since independence July 26, 1847.
The most devastating of its political crisis was 14 years of brutal civil war which ended in 2003, when LURD rebels besieged the capital, Monrovia forcing President Charles Taylor to resign and go into exile in Nigeria.