Following eight days of the nation-wide Voter Registration (VR) exercise, the National Committee for Elections Monitoring (NACEM) has given its assessment of the process thus far and has also forwarded a three-count recommendation.

In a press statement issued Wednesday, the group said it has observed the low turn out of Liberians at registration centers and attributed it to the low level of publicity and the lack of effective civic and voters' education.

However, NACEM said that despite the low turn out, it notes with satisfaction the participation of more female registrants than males, an observation that contradicts the recent update of the process that was released by the National Elections Commission (NEC).

Also the group expressed disappointment by the total absence of political parties representatives at all centers visited by their team.

Touching on security, NACEM said it recognizes the general presence of UNMIL and Liberian National Police at registration centers. But noticed that while some centers have continuous security presence, others were being served only by UNMIL mobile teams.

The monitoring group said its findings also revealed the flagrant disregard for the application of the rejection procedure at several centers. "We observed that voter registrars were not uniformly applying the rules of rejection, a situation which among others, compelled registrants who were denied to move from one center to another to register."

This tendency, according to NECAM sometimes led to violent between NEC officials and registrars. They named a number of isolated incidents of violence at centers in Bong, Bomi, Nimba and Montserrado Counties.

Meanwhile, the three-count recommendation of NECAM that are intended to move the process forward includes that efforts be made by NEC, UNMIL political parties and other stakeholders to whip up public awareness for the VR exercise.

The group also recommends that efforts be made by NEC to increase registration centers in the rural areas to allow access to majority of Liberians to register and vote.

NECAM is a coalition of three major civil society organizations, namely: the Inter-Religious Council of Liberia, the Coalition for Democracy in Liberia and the West African Network for Peace Building.

Being committed to ensuring a peaceful, transparent and participatory democratic process, the group said it has trained and deployed 130 monitors throughout Liberia to monitor and report on the conduct of the exercise.