Liberia’s Hanging Chad

In my inaugural post for the FPA blog I would like discuss recent events in the country where I have most recently been: Liberia. On Tuesday the 23rd Liberians went to the polls for a referendum vote on three issues. One of them was whether Supreme Court justices should retire at age 70 as is currently the case, or at 75, which is what the referendum question was asking. Unfortunately the ballot listed 75 for both choices with the result that what was already a controversial exercise turned into an embarrassing fiasco.

The blame for this bungle seems to be headed to the doorstep of Liberia’s National Election Commission, which is already under-fire for poorly preparing the electorate. But in all fairness UNDP should take some heat as well, as they were allegedly supervising the printing of the ballots in Denmark. They should at least issue a statement explaining what happened.

Frankly the whole affair raises some even more disturbing issues, such as why couldn’t a simple ballot document be printed in Liberia itself and why couldn’t the Election Commission handle this assignment on its own? After six years of what it claims is great progress, it seems that a simple print job is beyond the capacity of the administration. Equally disturbing is the fact that no one up and down the line bothered to proofread such an important item.

The devil is truly in the details. The Liberian people deserve better.