TECHNICAL REPORT – ELECTION DAY AND TALLYING OF RESULTS

Introduction
This technical report provides information on activities undertaken by the Elections Coordinating Committee (ECC) in observing the presidential and legislative elections that took place on October 10, 2023 and the runoff that was held on November 14, 2023. Activities also included observation of the tallying of results at the national tallying center and the various magisterial offices in the counties. The observation was done under the Liberia Domestic Election Observation (LIDEO) activity with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Following the conduct of the Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) exercise, Exhibition, Candidate nomination and Certification, and Campaign, Liberians went to the polls on October 10, 2023 and exercised their constitutional right to elect their next president, vice president, 15 senators and 73 members of the House of Representatives (HoR). Since none of the presidential candidates obtained the required 50% plus 1 vote to win outright, a run-off election between the first winner and the second-place winner was held on November 14, 2023. After the second round of voting, Jospeh Bokai of the opposition Unity Party (UP) was declared the winner after obtaining 50.6% of the total valid votes cast.

Objectives of the observation
The observation had three specific objectives:
• To assess the quality of the election management.
• To assess whether the elections were conducted in a peaceful manner.
• To assess the level of transparency in the tallying of election results at the national tallying centers and at the NEC’s magisterial offices.

Deployment Approach
The ECC deployed a mix of Short-Term Observers (STOs) and Long-Term Observers (LTOs) for the observation of the October 10 polls and the November 14, 2023 Presidential run-off elections. This approach positioned the ECC to gather information on the electoral context including the conduct of major activities such as voter registration, exhibition, the nomination of candidates, campaign, and tallying of results. Information related to these activities was collected by the LTOs assigned in each of the 73 electoral districts with higher population counties such as Montserrado, Nimba, Bong and Lofa Counties having two each. The STOs were deployed on election day to observe the set-up, opening of polls, voting and tabulation of results at various polling places observed. The information generated from these two categories of observers enabled the ECC to provide an independent assessment of the quality of the election management and citizens’ participation.
The ECC adopted a vetting procedure for the selection of both categories of observers. Steering Committee (SC) members of the ECC were involved in the selection process in partnership with the structure of the National Civil Society Council of Liberia at the county level. Forms were used to gather information on each observer to ensure that certain principles were adhered to including non-alignment with a political party or independent candidate. The selection process also assessed whether would be observers reside in the district where they registered to vote. The Secretariat was responsible for collating and categorizing the list of observers per electoral district, disaggregated by gender.

Download the ECC Reports covering Presidential & Legislative Election Voting and Tally Process

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The ECC envisions a Liberia where citizens are knowledgeable, have public confidence, and credibility in the democratic process to make informed decisions.

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