LEON Position Paper on the Introduction of BVR in Liberia Elections

The National Elections Commission (NEC) announced that it will be rolling out Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) for use during the upcoming 2023 General Election. This, according to the NEC, has been motivated by several factors among them the high number of multiple registrations seen during previous exercises. The last full national voter registration exercise was conducted for 2017 general elections, followed by voter roll update before the 2020 Special Senatorial Elections and Referendum. Nearly 2.5 million voters are now registered to vote. Distrust, nevertheless, remains over the accuracy of the voter’s roll, notably due to the alleged duplication of voter’s cards, difficulties with identification and allocation of voters per precinct, ‘trucking of voters’, among others1 . A total of 170,000 suspected duplicates were extracted and 4,567 records were confirmed to have appeared multiple times and were therefore removed from the roll.