By Esau J. Farr

Liberia is gearing up for the much heralded October 10, 2023, Presidential and Legislative Elections. What paves the way to this sacred democratic journey is the smooth conduct of the Voter’s Registration Process.

At the start of the Voter’s Registration Process, on Monday, March 20, 2023, there were reported poor turnouts at some Centers in Monrovia. It appears that there is a lack of interest on the part of some Liberians to participate democratically.

The Registration Process is intended to determine and document the total persons who are expected to cast their votes, but the process started on a poor note.

During the start of the BVR’s Process, this paper dispatched some of its reporters in the fields to visit several voting Precincts around Monrovia in Montserrado County.

Reports from those dispatched reporters showed that many Voter’s Registration Centers, across Monrovia did not open on time, while others opened on time, but hired NEC’s Staffers did not know what to do, while some faced the challenges of BVR’s Equipment not functioning and low energy to power sensitive equipment for active work.

NEC brought in a solar energy power to be used at all precincts, some of which are dysfunctional according to some NEC’s Workers.

Some of the Precincts visited, during the early morning hours of March 20, 2023 were, the Monrovia Opened Bible Standard School, African Glory, Warner High School Campus, Wells-Hairston High School and the SOFINA Elementary and Junior High School amongst others; just to name a few, some Workers in Gbarpolu County were contacted via telephone to get an update from the exercise.

The NEC’s hired Workers told this paper that though there were some delays in getting the process started in the Western Liberia, but they were glad that the process was smoothly going on.

“Yes, for us here in Gbarma, Gbarpolu County, things are fine now; when we started early this morning, it was bid difficult, but later, things started to work well for us,” one NEC’s staffer said in a brief phone interview.

The delays on the part of some NEC’s Staffers to efficiently and effectively operate BVR’s Equipment and the failure of some BVR’s Equipment to function has been greeted with mixed reactions from the public with some wondering what will happen in other remote Counties if Citizens in Monrovia can have such bad experience at the beginning of the voter’s registration exercises.

“You see my brother, these are some of the reasons why we can have low turn-out when it comes to voting processes in Liberia; people can leave from their various homes as early as 6:00Am and get to a registration or voting center and you can’t see the people you expect to see or what you have come for can’t be realized or achieved,” one elderly person said at the Monrovia Opened Bible Standard School System Precinct amidst lack of hope for the process to kick off as scheduled by the NEC.

Such delays to start of the Voter’s Registration Process and the failure of some BVR’s Equipment to function are worrisome and troubling for such crucial Elections for the West African Nation.

It is about time that NEC takes the needed corrective steps and measures to arrest the situation to avoid eligible voters being disenfranchised ahead of the 2023’s polls.