By Chernor Alimamy Kamara
Due to the ongoing contentious issue regarding the parallel announcement of the Presidential election results by the National Elections Watch (NEW), Dr. Adams B. Steven a Sierra Leonean based in the United States of America has questioned NEWs Parallel Voting Tabulation (PVT) system it reportedly used in its projection of the results.
He expressed his concerns at the Ministry of Information and Communications weekly press briefing held at Youyi Building on the 6th of July 2023.
He said the United States of America and other countries use it to make election result projections but wait for their legally constituted electoral bodies to do the official announcement.
“So it means that the actual result that may come from the electoral commission is the real result and not the other way round,” he said.
He said in most cases a survey of a few polling stations is collected and randomly selected where each should have an equal probability of being selected and that any abnormality that may occur in a particular polling station throughout the day will be spotted. He added that at the end of the election, the actual vote records of polling stations are put together and analyzed, after which a comparison should be made with the electoral commission’s data for accuracy.
Dr Steven noted that the implications of elections are serious and so is the outcome of anything associated with it, saying the PVT pronouncement of elections results can be the flashpoint of controversy and tension as was the case in Sierra Leone.
He stated that the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the pioneer of PVT recommended that before using it in any election, there should be collaboration with the Elections Management Bodies (EMBs).
He said after collaborating with the EMBs, if any abnormality is noticed, it is incumbent on the individual to take it to the electoral commission and bear in mind that no one is entitled to use it as a parallel election results announcement tool owing to the fact that there is the need to access the actual data from the Electoral Commission.
He also said that PVT must be understood and accepted by all stakeholders like the voters, Political Parties, and the Electoral Commission before its implementation.
Dr. Steven explained that the user of PVT should bring all stakeholders on board and explain to them what it means and that it should not be opinion-based, or partisan, but should be of high standards, grounded in statistical values, and be transparent. He admonished NEW to make their data or minimum polling stations available to the public.
He said that based on the turnout rate of 77.3% reported, NEW may have “genuinely or otherwise missed the southeast voter turnout”.
He concluded that when carrying out election observation functions, it should not be about the ambitions of individual politicians of any color, nor should it be about any preferences of non-Sierra Leoneans, but it is about the 8.4 million people who would suffer because of negative consequences brought about by the actions of few people.
It could be recalled that NEW published Presidential election results contrary to what the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone announced and thus predicted a run-off instead of a first-round victory of President Julius Maada Bio.
The PVT is used for elections monitoring, projections, and cross-checking of results for accuracy.
Copyright © 2023 Politico (07/07/23)
