The National Election Watch (NEW) has revealed the methodology used to arrive at a different conclusion than the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone (ECSL) in the just concluded presidential election.

The local election observer body said they deployed 6,000 across the country covering every polling centre.

“Of these observers, 720 were specifically trained and deployed to a statistically representative sample of polling stations across all the 5 regions and 16 districts in Sierra Leone using PRVT methodology,” NEW said.

They said their observers were deployed randomly at the “statistically representative” sample polling stations.

NEW added that their observers were present at the said stations for the entire election day where they transmitted data they gathered as documented on the Results Reconciliation Forms (RRFs).

“Because observers are deployed to a statistically representative sample of polling stations, the PRVT provides independent and impartial projections of the official results,” NEW said.

They added that the same method was applied in 2018 and found out that their projections were in tandem with final results released by then National Electoral Commission (NEC).

“When the official results are inconsistent with the PRVT projections, as is the case for the 2023 presidential election, then it provides evidence the result do not reflect the votes cast polling stations,” they said.

The election observation body also provided divergent voter turnout figures. NEW said voter turnout should have been between 77 and 79 percent while the ECSL reported that voter turnout for presidential election is 84 percent – approximately 5 times higher than NEW’s projection.

They also refused to accept the ECSL’s 0.4 percent report of total invalid votes casted. NEW said total invalid votes should have been at least 4.7 percent of total votes casted.

Some supporters of the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) criticised NEW’s report equating it to a recipe for chaos. Conversely, supporters of the main opposition said the report is a manifestation of their fear before the polls.