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The Commissioner of the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone (ECSL), Mohamed Konneh has revealed that the Commission will release the aggregated voter register in coming days.
“We are going to release the voter register as required and normally done in the past election.
“We will give the names and photos (of voters) to political parties to print,” Konneh revealed at meeting with political parties, election observers and the media at Tower Hill in Freetown on Wednesday.
The Commissioner also revealed that ballot papers are currently being printed and will be readied in due time for the 24 June polls.
“All political parties will be present when we receive them at the airport before we dispatch them to the various regions,” he said.
Konneh informed political parties that the Commission is open and will continue to dialogue with them. He also spoke about their sacrifices while assuring of their commitment to conduct transparent elections.
Meanwhile, representatives of the main opposition All People’s Congress (APC), Dr. Richard Conteh and Party National Secretary General, Lansana Dumbuya were still concerned with voter list that will be presented to political parties. Their concern was that the issued list must be the same with the one being used by ECSL staff on polling day.
“When I look at the pictures in this your (ECSL) register and compare it with us (Political parties), it is clear that we cannot identify voters,” Konteh said.
He added that their party agent would not be able to identify voters at polling stations because of the quality of the photos.
The ECSL’s Director of Voter and Data Roll, Henry Jusufu Swaray said the reason the ECSL would not issue the same voter list to political parties is to protect data of voters. He informed the gathering that their list has personal information of voters that could expose them to possible post-election danger.
“We have never shared the same voter list with political parties,” Swaray said.
He added that this current practice has been the norm in previous elections held in 2012 and 2018.
