NEC Arrests Several Persons For Double Registration
The National Elections Commission (NEC) has arrested several individuals within Montserrado County who had gone to register for the second time in the ongoing Biometric Voter Registration exercise.
The Commission had since turned them over to the Liberia National Police for onward investigation and charge to Court in accordance with the new elections law.
According to a release on March 26, 2023, any registrant involved in duplicate registration will have to ratify the issue with the Commission before his/her information can be included on the Voter Registration Roll.
The Commission (NEC), says that the Biometric Registration System is designed in a way that any duplicate of registration will be detected during the biometric adjudication process through the Central Management System as a result the voter information of registrants involved will be deactivated.
The NEC reiterated that it is a crime to register or attempt to register more than once adding that those that are involved are taking risks, because they will be exposed through the biometric system, and their information will subsequently be reported to the Ministry of Justice for Prosecution.
The NEC Liberia noted that at the end of the first phase of the process, all data from the 1,065 Voter Registration Centers in Bomi, Gbarpolu, Grand Bassa, Grand Cape Mount, Margibi, and Montserrado Counties will be synchronized through the biometric servers where the deduplication process will commence.
The NEC assured the public that the system is very efficient at comparing millions of biometric samples which will facilitate the detection of any duplicate registration across the Commission’s database of registered voters.
“The objective for the migration from the Optical Mark Recognition system to the Biometric Voter Registration system is to have a credible voter roll, void of duplicate registration by using unique human physical characteristics. This is why the Commission is capturing biographic data of registrants – thumbprint and face”
Meanwhile, the Commission has condemned in the strongest term the acts of violence perpetrated on the ongoing Voter Registration process and therefore commended the Liberia National Police (LNP) through the Ministry of Justice for their rapid response in addressing situations.
