— Urges Eligible Liberians to Turn Out and Get Registered During VR Period
The National Elections Commission (NEC) Chairperson Davidetta Brown-Lansanah is admonishing Liberian eligible voters to brace up and take advantage of the Voters’ Registration exercise which is expected to take place across the country from March 20 to May 11, 2023.
Speaking at the end of a-three day ‘Nomination Procedure’ workshop organized by the NEC, Commission Lansanah called on Liberians to look up to only to the National Elections Commission (NEC) and trusted partners for information relating to the guidelines and timetable of the impending October General and Presidential elections.
The NEC Chairperson’s comment provided clarifications and authoritative information about activities of the NEC ahead of the October 10, 2023 elections.
The NEC chairperson clarified that at no time did the Commission issue a statement informing the public that no one would be allowed to obtain a VR card without being in possession of a National Identification card as being reported and speculated by some media institutions in the country.
The NEC Chairperson added that such rumors about the activities of the NEC is undermining and could derail the entire process if nothing is done to provide the necessary clarities to the population; a reason which according to her the commission committed itself to working assiduously harder to always keep citizens and partners abreast with every process leading to the conduct of the October 2023 elections.
Contrary to the rumor that “no one would be allowed to register unless they present a National Identification or Citizen ID card”, Chairperson Lansanah clarified that the National Elections Commission as usual has stated there is no such requirement needed for a Liberian who has reached the required voting age to obtain a VR card, but pointed out if there is a need for any clarity about the eligibility of anyone who goes to a VR center to obtain a VR card, the VR staff would as that such person provides documents that would prove his/her eligibility to obtain a VR card. “While at the VR center, if for any reason, the person who is registering you notices some things about you; maybe how you talk or something like that and they have doubt that you are not a Liberian, that person will ask you to bring some documents to authenticate that you are a Liberian”.
The NEC boss continued: “they could ask you to bring your birth certificate, passport, Citizen ID card or if you are a naturalized Liberian, they will ask you to bring your naturalization documents just to prove that you are an eligible Liberian. These are things that are in our law, we did not just introduce it”.
According to Madam Lansanah, the above requirements are only needed if there arises doubt about the eligibility of a person seeking the VR card, noting that no one has to show “anything as a prerequisite to register, unless in a case where there is suspicion about your eligibility”.
Commenting on the introduction of the Biometric VR card, Madam Lansanah stated that the move is intended to “make the system better and reduce the margin of error” and maintained that the Biometric technology is nothing strange to Liberia as several institutions are already using it.
She pointed out that Driver License issue by the Transport Ministry, the Citizen ID cards issue by the National Identification Registry (NIR) and ID cards issue by several public and private entities are all being powered by the Biometric system.
The introduction of the Biometric VR ID card, according to Madam Lansanah is forward step toward getting on par with other countries of the world and also a great move to hold free, fair and transparent elections moving forward as according to her, the Biometric system has got security features that capture and store data of users while at the same time ID cards designed by the system are more durable and guaranteed as compared to the regular laminated plastic ID cards.
The NEC Chairperson commenting on her institution’s preparedness to conduct the impending October 2023 elections, said the commission is faced with numerous challenges ranging from logistics to finance, but assured the nation that with support from the government of Liberia and partners, NEC remains on course with preparations for the successful conduct of the elections and called on Liberians to keep trusting the commission and always look out for factual information about the commission and avoid being misled by rumors and speculations being carried out by people whose only aim is to undermine the efforts of the National Elections Commission.
She spoke interview with a team of Reporters recently at Peace Empire Conference Hall in Gompa, Nimba County.
