IPNews-Monrovia: Unofficial preliminary reports from Nimba, Grand Bassa, Grand Cape Mount and Montserrado counties put Edith Gongloe-Weh, Nyonblee Karnga-Lawrence, Boto Kanneh, and Abraham Darius Dillon, respectively from the opposition bloc, in commending leads.
According to preliminary reports gathered from several polling centers across the country, especially, Nimba, Bassa, Montserrado and Grand cape Counties, the above are set to win.
IPNews understand those reports are unofficial from provisional tally at various election centers, send in bt our reporters across the country, while while we await the official preliminary results from the National Election Commission NEC.
However, across polling centers, several Liberians gathered peacefully to cast their votes. Both national and international observers have described the process as peaceful.
In Nimba county, there was some bickering at the some polling places, when the citizens saw empty boxes being loaded with bike to other centers.
The election supervisor in Ganta, identified as Yei, told reporters that Ganta was given one vehicle for deployment of materials to 12 precincts and they were forced to hire a motorcycle to help ease the tension. A heavy downpour of rain also brought another setback to the voting process.
The process of transporting some of the materials via motorbike created tension among the voters at the YMCA Polling Center, who accused the poll workers of cheating, trying to manipulate the results by taking boxes to unknown places.
In response, the Election Supervisor said the number of boxes brought to the YMCA included the boxes in Foundation Academic Center, because the only car assigned in Ganta has gone to deliver items to centers, the magistrate asked them to hire a bike to take the remaining materials to the Foundation Academic Center.
In same development, tension is said to be brewing at the Child Friendly School Campus, where an opened box filled with the ballot materials was brought at a time when voting was already underway.
The Elections Coordinating Committee (ECC), a civil society platform comprising 30 organizations that observes all aspects of electoral processes in Liberia, including the 2020 SSE and Referendum, in its midday election-day press conference reported that polling precinct 30280 polling place #3 at the Messiah School System in Montserrado District #3, a voter who was initially issued two ballots (senatorial and referendum) later attempted to drop an extra senatorial ballot plus the referendum in the ballot box.
When asked where he got the extra senatorial ballots, he accused the ballot paper issuer of giving it to him. However, he was later turned over to the police for further investigation.
At precinct 30057, polling place #1 in Montserrado District #13, the ECC said that a voter attempted to take a picture of his marked ballot when the NEC officials intervened and discarded his ballot paper, something that caused tension at the polling place for about five minutes before the pressure was later quelled down and voting resumed.
Also at Precinct 30484, Polling place 06 in Montserrado District #5, Observer confirmed that ballot paper issuer issued eight referendum ballots to voters that had four of the eight prepositions missing before realizing the error.
When the observer was contacted about the name of the polling place, he confirmed that the venue was an unfinished building.
Another shocking incident also happened in Monrovia when two men, Prince Roberts and Trokon Davies were arrested for being in possession of one hundred voter ID cards in 19th Street Sinkor.
James Goodday Flomo, who broke the news, explained that he received a phone call from residents of the 19th Street community that there were men in the community distributing Voter ID to people in the community.
According to him, he disguised himself on the advice of the residents and sought the assistance of a police officer. They were taken to the Police headquarters and are currently in the custody of the police.
Also in its second press statement on Election Day, the Covid-19 Election Monitoring and Violence Prevention Situation Room (CEMViP-SR), otherwise known as the Situation Room said report from its over 700 field reporters confirmed that polls in some electoral districts such as Tappita and Ganta in Nimba County started lately; and in some areas such as Foya and Quardu-Gboni Districts in Lofa County, Cestos City in River Cess County and Tappita City, Nimba County, the process was marred by poor turnout of eligible voters.
In another incident, the situation Room reported that some youth of Normon-Datono Town in Kongba District seized election ballot boxes upon the instruction of elders.
Referendum Conundrum
On the Referendum, IPNews gathered that vast majority of the electorates had little or no idea on the national referendum.
Election Observers in Bomi County spoke with several voters who lamented that no awareness was made on the process and not a single sample paper of the referendum was distributed to eminent citizens, including chiefs, elders and community chairpersons prior to the voting, to educate their people on the referendum.
