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Salone News

Ballot Boxes Arrive in Freetown for Elections
- Thursday 26 July 2007.
By Jonathan Leigh.

Officials of the National Electoral Commission have been busy in the last one week at the Freetown International Airport, Lungi taking delivery of election materials.

Already at the NEC warehouse are ballot boxes and indelible ink which were transported from the airport to Freetown under heavy police escort.

Also, the National Electoral Commission is to provide 37,000 Sierra Leoneans with jobs on elections day basically to work in various capacities at polling stations across the country.

At least five persons are going to be deployed at each polling station all over the country to assist voters cast their ballots.

Every polling station will be headed by a presiding officer under whom there is going to be somebody responsible for properly arranging the queue, check names on the voter register , authenticate the voter ID cards and finally give assistance on how to vote and where to cast the ballot if necessary.

NEC says it is going to give preference to teachers since this is the usual long vacation period to compensate for their being left out during the voter registration exercise in February this year.

Successful applicants will have to undergo training and the training kits have already arrived. But NEC is very cautious as to those it shall be employing. The criteria are they should not have been convicted for electoral fraud and must be registered voters.