The African Youths Peer Review Committee (AYPRC) has welcomed the idea introducing a Biometric Voting Process (BVR), ahead of the country’s 2023 general and presidential elections.
This comes in the face of the emergence of digital and other new forms of technological operations in Liberia that would help in launching the biometric registration in in the country.
On Monday, June 7, 2021, the National Elections Commission (NEC) spoke of Voter Registration (BVR) study aimed at reducing some of the consistent electoral irregularities associated with past elections.
NEC said the new BVR process when operationalized, will enhanced voter confidence and increase the integrity, accuracy and transparency of the country’s electoral process.
In a statement released Monday, June 21, 2021, AYPRC said being a continental youth organization that believes in transparency, accountability, and standardized democratic values, it sees the introduction of the BVR process in Liberia as an embodiment of true transition from the analog system of voting to a more technological guided process.
AYPRC National Coordinator Jeddlee Stephen Kinnii noted that frequent complaints of electoral frauds normally trumpeted by candidates in previous elections, and expressed optimism that the new BVR process will address several electoral issues ranging from double registration, duplication thus enhancing credibility in Liberia’s electoral process.
According to AYPRC, BVR is a globally accepted strategy often used to curtail electoral irregularities especially in terms of getting the right data of those participating in a particular election.
The group is calling on the Liberian government through the NatioNEC not to only consider studying the possibility of introducing a BVR system in the country’s electoral process but to make sure that such system is integrated in the holding of the pending 2023 elections.
The continental youth group is also calling on the NEC to embark on a massive awareness exercise as soon as possible to educate the population as to how the BVR process work and the meaningful impacts it will have on the country’s electoral system.
AYPRC, like many other international institutions, says it believes that the 2023 elections in Liberia is crucial and as such all useful electoral mechanisms are essential to keep the country peaceful during and after the holding of the 2023 polls.