The National Elections Commission (NEC), working in-sync with key international partners, has put in vogue all of the necessary mechanisms aimed at conducting a free, fair and transparent by-election to fill the void created in the Liberian Senate occasioned by the death of Hon. Hannah G. Brent, Montserrado County Senator of the Second Category.

The NEC was formally notified on September 1, 2009 by the Liberian Senate through a letter channeled to the NEC under the signature of the Secretary of the Liberian Senate. The communication to the NEC, among other things, said, "in fulfillment of Article 37 of the Constitution of the Republic of Liberia , the Senate directs that I officially notify the National Elections Commission of the death of the Senator mentioned supra which has created a vacancy in the Senate".

Article 37 of the 1986 Constitution of the Republic of Liberia states: " in the event of a vacancy in the Legislature caused by death, resignation, expulsion or otherwise, the presiding officer shall within 30 Days notify the Elections Commissions thereof. The Elections Commission shall not later than 90 days thereafter caused a by-election to be held..."

Being au-fait of this constitutional provision, the NEC, in a somewhat proactive posturing, has begun bracing itself to conduct what is being described as the biggest and highly challenging by-election since the 2005 General and Presidential elections.

With a territorial area of 737 square miles (1,909, square kilometers), Montserrado has 14 Electoral Districts, 496, 508 registered voters, 280 voting precincts and 989 polling places.

The NEC, with limited staff of not more than 200, has designed a strategy to recruit community dwellers to serve as Civic/voter educators, town criers and poll workers. The recruitment exercise for civic /voter educators and town criers is ongoing while the training of trainers of poll workers is also ongoing to be followed by recruitment of community dwellers who will be drilled in the key concepts of electioneering and immediately deployed to the various polling precincts and places for the conduct of the Montserrado Senatorial by-election.

Among preparation work being carried out so far by the NEC are, inspection of the various NEC Warehouses in Montserrado and across the country so as to establish whether or not voting materials are available in-country; inspection of voting precincts and places; identification of ware houses to store voting materials that will be used during the by-election and sourcing funding for the smooth and unhindered conduct of the by-election.

Almost all of NEC Headquarter staff as well as magistrates from across the country have got their hands on deck in readiness for the Montserrado challenge.

According to the Key Electoral Dates attending this by-election, the election date will be November10, 2009 and the cost is estimated at 1.2Million United States dollars.

On September 10, 2009, during the occasion marking the official release of the Electoral calendar, the Chairman of the NEC, Hon. James M. Fromayan, mandated the Clerk of Writ, Emmanuel Kerkula, to serve the Writ of Election on NEC's Montserrado Magistrates for the conduct of the Montserrado Senatorial by-election.

NEC has two magisterial areas in Montserrado with Vopea Gongloe and James Cordor serving as Magistrates in Lower and Upper Motserrado respectively.

Since 2005, the NEC has conducted five by-elections to fill in slots in the Lower House while it has held two Senatorial by-lections to fill vacancy in the Upper House. In 2006 Representatives by-elections were held in Rivercess County District # 1 and Margibi County District #2. There were similar Representative by-elections in Nimba County District 4 and Grand Bassa County District #4 in 2007.While in 2008 there was one Representative by-election staged in Margibi county.

So far, the upcoming Montserrado by-election brings to three the number of Senatorial by election to be undertaken by the NEC. 2007 saw the conduct of a Senatorial by election in Gbarpolu county and 2009 witnessed a senatorial by-election in River Gee county.

The difference between the Montserrado Senatorial by-election and those before it is conspicuous and stand up tall. Besides being densely populated and having a large voting populace, Montserrado can best be described as the home of Liberia's "conscious society" and is blessed with myriad media outlets with perhaps different agenda. The voting terrain may not be rough and indeed easily accessible, yet the NEC must be ever vigilant and up to the task so as to checkmate mischief makers who only intent may be to disrupt the process by involving in subterfuges and unacceptable behaviors that could portend an untoward political disposition.