Even though the National Electoral Commission had declared voting to start at 7a.m ON Saturday November 17, inhabitants of ward 359 in Constituency 100, were already in a long queue at around 2a.m early Saturday morning waiting to cast their votes in Sierra Leone’s first multi-tier elections.
The Polling Centre Manager attached to the ward, Joseph Boima informed Awoko that polling centre kits, apart from ballot papers, had arrived some minutes after 3am; followed by ballot papers for the four elective positions which were brought in by NEC officials at around 5am.
But Boima and his team were seen very vigilant in putting every voting material intact ahead of the 7am slated time. At the time it was getting close to 7am, voting had almost begun, with police, other security personnel and media starting the process.
Each of the ballot booklets has three hundred ballot papers, issued to maximum three hundred voters at each polling booth. However, there were additional ballots provided to each ballot paper issued to replace damaged ballots.
However, whilst the military was scouting the community before polling commenced, Sergeant Andrew Momoh of the Sierra Leone Police was busy deploying his personnel at each polling booth to guarantee security as the process went on. He said that seven police officers had been assigned to take charge of security of the station.
A collection of voters who spoke to Awoko expressed that the polling process, as it was going on, was fairly credible. At least 80 percent of interviewees expressed optimism that their respective parties will win the election at first ballot, and made it clear that they will not accept controversial result (s).
Moreover, whilst a hand full of interviewees said they were voting for continuity of the present regime, others on the contrary said they were casting their votes for a change of government.
By Poindexter Sama
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