On October 11, a Facebook user named Zobon Jallah shared a video to a Facebook group FRISE FM, claiming that voting materials were found in Caldwell.
The Claim
The exact words in the Facebook post were: “Breaking News, we just found voting material in Caldwell on a motor bike. According to the bike rider, the boxes were intended for District Number 17th.”
In the video, some angry people can be seen confronting a motorbike rider who is wearing an apparel belonging to the National Elections Commission (NEC). NEC stickers can also be seen on the boxes with information about the NEC magisterial area where the boxes were being commuted from. The Magisterial area on the boxes is Lower Montserrado County, District #17 Precinct name Gboglee Town Public School with Precinct code 30456.
The angry people in the video were seen preventing the bike rider, who is an election worker, from leaving the scene. They were demanding that he provides reasons why the election materials were being transported on a motor bike.
Rating Justification
To fact check this claim about the election materials and why were they being transported on a motorbike, we first conducted a reverse image search on the photos but did not find any result to relate the video to any particular time or instance.
But in the comment section under the post, there were comments of people who said the materials on the bike were being transported to the national tally center at the Samuel Kayan Doe Sports Complex in Paynesville.
We then contacted the National Elections Commission through its Director of Communications, Mr. Henry Flomo on WhatsApp.
Mr. Flomo replied to our inquiry in a message, saying: “Elections are over, and results are in the hands of the parties and posted for community members to know how they voted. Open tallying of votes is ongoing across the country. Now it’s retrieval of materials and one means of conveyance is by motorcycle due to bad roads. The conveying of materials, especially empty ballot boxes, are totally insignificant to the process for this is now post-election day of the 2023 electoral cycle.”
Conclusion
Based on these facts, we therefore conclude that the claim that voting materials from Electoral District # 17 in Montserrado County was found on A bike in Caldwell is misleading. What happened in Caldwell was that empty ballot boxes from Lower Montserrado County, District # 17 were been transported to NEC on motorcycle. The NEC confirms that motorbike is a mode of transportation of election materials due to bad road conditions.
Local Voices Liberia, in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme, has implemented the iVerify Liberia system with the objective of strengthening capacities to address threats to information integrity, especially in view of the upcoming 2023 elections, to ensure all Liberian citizens have access to credible, reliable and verified information, everywhere and at all times.
This initiative is funded by Irish Aid, Embassy of Sweden in Monrovia, European Union Delegation in Liberia and the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund. The donors have no say in the production of this fact check report.
