By: James M. Kollie Contact: 0775836932/0881347782
As the Biometric Voters’ Registration kicked off in Lofa County by the National Elections Commission (NEC), prospective voters in the county have outlined factors that they noted may lead to electoral violence during the process which will impede the successful conduct of the process if not worked on.
As per the National Elections Commission timetable, the process is expected to run from April 21 to May 11, 2023, the exercise which began on April 21, 2023 along with other eight counties is gears towards the anticipated October 10, 2023 presidential and legislative elections.
Scores of citizens who spoke to journalists complained of the slow pace of the exercise as a result of the constant failure of the solar panel to provide power on computers laptops and other BVR equipment assigned by the National Elections Commission workers in these counties.
NEC workers at various BVR centers successfully completed the set up before 8:00am but did not start on time as was expected the situation according to our correspondent infuriated some people who had gathered very early in the morning to complete the process returning to their normal activities.
“The voter registration process has begun and people are turning out in their numbers to register but is very slow and if NEC would achieve its goal of registering more people in Lofa, it has to improve on the equipment and some of the staff” Emmanuel Fayia a resident of Foya Kama said.
Some have also identified potential of electoral violence during the BVR exercise in Lofa County. They named trucking of registrants from one place to another and delay and unpreparedness of NEC workers as factors that may lead to violence.
“People are leaving their normal activities and going to centers in the name of getting voter registration cards; so if the equipment keeps ma-functioning citizens will get angry and may react negatively” Nancy Kpehe of Koiba City said
Our correspondent saw NEC’s workers applying efforts to secure enough energy supply from the solar power provided to them to power the laptop and others equipment.