Introduction
This technical report provides the outcome and highlights activities of the Elections Coordinating Committee (ECC) observation of the National Election Commission (NEC) Exhibition of the Provisional Registration Roll (PRR), which ran from June 12-17, 2023. This is the first time the National Elections Commission (NEC) has used Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) technology with facial and thumb recognition capacities. The ECC carried out the observation under the Liberia Domestic Election Observation (LIDEO) activity with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Deployment Approach:
The ECC trained and deployed 73 district observers to observe the exhibition centers within their respective electoral districts and 19 county coordinators to observe the objections and appeal processes at the NEC Magistrates’ offices. During the observation period of six days from June 12-17, 2023, the ECC received four hundred and twenty (425) reports from its observers.
Rationale for the conduct of the Exhibition:
The conduct of the exhibition of the Provisional Registration Roll (PRR) is an integral part of voter registration because it sets the stage for the finalization of the Final Registration Roll (FRR) that is used on election day to process voters to vote. From a technical perspective, the exhibition exercise creates the opportunity to do the following:
Correction: The exhibition process affords voters the chance to identify and correct mistakes in their names and other bio-data information, as well as to confirm that the information displayed on the PRR is correct.
Inclusion: The exhibition was also intended for voters to make claims for the inclusion of valuable data such as sex, name, and photos which were inadvertently omitted during the capturing of their data.
Objection to inclusion: The exhibition also allows citizens to challenge or object the inclusion of specific categories of persons, such as those who have died or those who do not meet the eligibility criteria, including age and nationality. Nonetheless, the burden is on those who will file a claim to object the inclusion of certain names on the FRR. The practice has been that when such a claim is made, the person against whom the claim is made also has the chance to provide counter-evidence on why he or she should be included on the FRR.
download a copy of the ECC’s Technical Report on the Exhibition process: ECC_Technical Report Covering Voters’ List Exhibition_2023