Society-Elections-CVE
Liberia Records Huge Invalid Votes, NEC Urges CVE Integration In Tertiary Education
By K. Ericson Sayee
MONROVIA, Oct 25(LINA) – In the just ended October 10 polls, the National Elections Commission (NEC) recorded about 114,610 invalid votes from across the country, this has sparked concern from the National Elections Commission (NEC).
To avert the recurrence of the situation, NEC Chairperson, Davidetta Browne Lansanah, has suggested that Civic and Voter Education (CVE) be integrated into tertiary learning as a means of enhancing voter’s capacities.
Madam Browne Lansanah noted that the number of invalid votes is of concern to the electoral body; therefore, she craves for the public support by backing them whenever they submit an electoral budget to the National Legislature.
“We are being criticized for not prolonging enough CVE to educate voters how to mark the way they are supposed to mark ballots, so we will take that correction. We will do our best next time”, the NEC head stated.
She added: “But also, too, I will say that when we request a legislative budget to address most of these things, those of us who criticize that much, should be the ones to say to the legislature give the people the money because every step of the way that we take, we pay for it”.
Making the disclosure at the close of results announcement on Tuesday, October 24, 2023, at the headquarters of the National Elections Commission in Monrovia, the Chairperson was frank that the accorded invalid votes is a deep concern and will thrive to minimize it in the forthcoming runoff elections.
However, she outlined several consequences for which invalid votes are accorded hugely in Liberia, saying that “some of the voters do not even know how to mark the ballot, so most of them waste no time but fold them and put them in the ballot box.”
Another factor of the invalid votes, according to her, is that there are Liberians who decide to be vexed with candidates that they do not like and mark the person’s face all over, stating, “I am saying this because we have done a survey and we saw some of these things”.
Commenting on the transparency and fairness of the October 10 elections, Madam Lansanah made known that, though there were confronted hurdles along the way, the just ended elections were free, fair, and transparent because the NEC when confronted with challenges, it made sure that whatever malpractices were reviewed and corrected.
“I will say by the actions that we took, we made corrections and the fact that we sounded those problems to you and the Liberian people and told you what corrected measures we put in place to address the different challenges. I will say that the 2023 October elections were fair elections”, she said.
She also mentioned that the NEC is confident that it will conduct any election free and fair and then called on the Liberian people to trust and rely on the National Elections Commission today, tomorrow, and the day after.
LINA KES/WSG
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