By Saio Marrah
The Chairman of the Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone, Mohamed Konneh says ballot papers and other voting logistics being delivered to all the 16 electoral districts, show readiness on the part of the commission in conducting the June 24th multitier elections.
He informed stakeholders at the Freetown International Conference Centre on Wednesday 21st June 2023, that the voting materials that arrived in the country on Monday 19th June would be dispatched to the respective polling centres starting from Thursday 22nd June this year.
He said there are also tactile ballot guides included in the ballot papers that will enable the blind to cast their votes for candidates of their choice.
There million three hundred and seventy-four thousand two hundred and fifty-eight (3,374,258), ballot papers plus five percent (5%) of that number were already in the country, he said.
Training of polling and tallying staff ended on Wednesday 21st June this year.
Sensitive and non-sensitive materials have been distributed across the country, and ramps erected at polling sites for the physically –challenged, Konneh explained.
He said they could not establish district tallying centres due to logistical challenges, and that they only have permanent structures at the regional offices.
Commenting on the copies of final voter ID cards provided to all political parties in a soft copy version, he said detailed information about registrants were omitted with the exception of their names and polling centres where they got registered.
The reason for that he said was to prevent what happened during the registration process when some people were photocopying and reproducing fake voter registers because they had access to the details of the registrants. Another reason he said was to securitize the voter ID card for it to be difficult for people to copy as they were.
He pointed out that if personal details of registrants are issued to political parties, there is a possibility that someone would go to polling centres and claim a name.
He said those without voter ID cards would be allowed as provided per law after electoral officials would have confirmed their identity through their personal information.
The decision by the commission he said is in tandem with the law on personal data protection.
On the issue of early voting by the Hajj pilgrims, he said there was a 70% turnout and was not only limited to those that the government-provided scholarship.
He also admitted that some of the photos on the voter ID cards were very terrible because they were extracted from the National Civil Registration Authority data that was developed in 2017, which he said reduced the quality of the photos.
Commenting on concerns that the commission should apply a manual format in tallying the results, he said ECSL will back it up with the electronic version.
According to Konneh, if there are inconsistencies the commission would have at least three sources (one copy at the district, the original copy at tallying centre and then the electronic version) of the result which they can verify from.
After assuring that the commission will ensure the announcement of the final result is done earlier as compared to the past elections, he did not give the exact date.
Copyright © 2023 Politico (23/06/23)
