-NEC defends BVR system
The National Elections Commission (NEC) says its biometric registration system is designed to detect fraudsters that would want to engage in double registration.
"The biometric registration system is designed in a way that any duplicate registration will be detected during the biometric adjudication process through the Central Management System and the voter information of registrants involved will be deactivated," NEC said following reports of alleged ongoing double registration by cheaters.
The Commission explained that at the end of first phase of the process, all data from the 1,065 Voter Registration Centers in Bomi, Gbarpolu, Grand Bassa, Grand Cape Mount, Margibi, and Montserrado Counties will be synchronized through the biometric servers where the deduplication process will commence.
"The system is very efficient at comparing millions of biometric samples which will facilitate the detection of any duplicate registration across the Commission's database of registered voters. Any registrant involved in duplicate registration will have to ratify the issue with the Commission before his/her information can be included on the Voter Registration Roll," the Commission noted in a statement.
The NEC emphasized that it is a crime to register or attempt to register more than once and that those involved are taking risks, because they will be exposed through the biometric system, and their information will subsequently be reported to the Ministry of Justice for Persecution.
The Commission further says that the objective for the migration from the Optical Mark Recognition system to the Biometric Voter Registration system is to have a credible voter roll, void of duplicate registration by using unique human physical characteristics. This is why the Commission is capturing biographic data of registrants - thumbprint and face.
At the same time, the Commission condemns in the strongest term possible those involved in acts of violence perpetuated during the voter registration process and commend the Liberia National Police through the Ministry of Justice for their rapid response in addressing the situation.
