At the press conference marking the end of the second phase of the Biometric Voter Registration (BVR), and entering the third phase, Christiana Thorpe Chief of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) has appealed for people coming from different parts of the world to be allowed to register in any center they find themselves.
“Whilst the Commission has to recognize the eagerness of communities to protect the integrity of the electoral process, members of the public must be mindful of the fact that registration eligibility of applicants must be assessed by the Registrar on individual merit” the Chief said.
She added that “the Commission is therefore appealing to members of the public to desist from preventing applicants from presenting themselves for registration.”
She said that registration is the right of every Sierra Leonean and it is their human rights and should not be taken away from them. As a Commission she said their role is to ensure that people who present themselves should be registered “as we have the right to register them.”
Christiana Thorpe maintained that even with the influx of people in the country for registration, this is not affecting the total number of registrant as the expected number per phase is 800,000 which is their target.
She said that where there is doubt in any registration process, the registrar of that District has the discretion to register the person or not.
The NEC Chairperson stated that even the Constitution of the country mandates every Sierra Leonean to register as long as they are of sound mind and are above the age of 18 years and therefore “these people have the right to register.”
She disclosed that over voting does not occur during the registration process as based on the number of people who have registered at the particular centres; that is how they will be taken into consideration when supplying voters kits during elections day.
Giving an overall total of the number of registrants, Christiana Thorpe said that the grand total for the two phases are 1,341,899 and the total record for phase one was 709,784, and 632,115 captured for phase two with 151 outstanding incomplete reports.
In the analysis of the registration she said there are 112 Constituencies, 394 Wards, and 2,998 Centres but that only 619 Centres have reported so far and this she said is satisfactory.
Christiana Thorpe further highlighted certain problems which they were able to address during the cause of the process. One of these areas is that of the technical and operational support as the Commission was able to solve the problem that was experienced on the BVR kits and generators during phase one.
The Commission she went on was also able to deploy additional kits to 9 Centres during the second phase and this was done to salvage the overcrowding and non- registrants in certain areas they identified, and these kits were from the remaining ones kept with the Commission.
By Betty Milton
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