MONROVIA, Montserrado – In the wake of numerous reports of voter registration challenges throughout Liberia, Jerome G. Kokorya, chairman of National Elections Commission, says the commission may extend the registration deadline beyond March 7.

As of now, the 2017 general and presidential election voter registration runs from Feb 1 to March 7, 2017.

The ongoing voter registration has been characterized by widespread criticism of the incompetence of the agents at registration centers.

“If eligible voters do not complete their registration process before the stipulated March 7 deadline, the NEC may consider extending the time to enable eligible voters to go through the process,” Kokorya told journalists in Monrovia.

He noted that NEC’s earlier projections of registering 2.5 million eligible voters may be exceeded.

Kokorya assured Liberians and partners that measures have already been put in place to detect violations of Liberian electoral laws and to protect the voter registration process from being compromised.

Faulty cameras, unqualified staff, and intermittent disruptions due to riots at some voter registration centers could be responsible for NEC not reaching its goal before March 7.

Kokorya said judging from the forms that were sent out in the fields by NEC, about one million Liberians have registered since the process started on February.

“Information available to me suggests that the forms are running out,” he added.

At the same time, Oscar Bloh, head of the Elections Coordinating Committee, said the committee has seen an absence of uniformed officers and political parties’ agents at voter registration centers.

Bloh noted that many of the centers are not opening on time and they have few functioning cameras. He also noticed that there were fewer women registering than expected.

According to Bloh, the ECC observation is based on 162 text messages received from 100 centers across the country.

“The ECC observation does not cover the 2,080 voter registration centers throughout the country,” he clarified.

Meanwhile, Joseph Nyansuah, NEC’s acting communication director, said NEC had sent out over 800,000 forms to all voter registration centers. He said the commission’s current estimate of registered persons is based on what he called a ‘batch analysis’ and said once the forms are all used, NEC will determine the complete number of registrations.

Featured photo by Zeze Ballah