Claim
The National Elections Commission is Recruiting AD Hoc Staff for the Coming General Election
Summary
A link being shared by social media with claim that the National Elections Commission (NEC) is recruiting ad hoc staff for the upcoming election is a scam intended to invade individuals’ personal data.
Evidence
Local Voices Liberia iVerify team has fact-checked this link and the claim and found both are false.
To arrive at this, we reviewed the National Elections Commission website and did not see a vacancy notice published there for the recruitment of AD ad hoc staff as claimed in the viral link.
Meanwhile, a further review of the NEC’s Facebook page shows that the Commission has cautioned citizens not to respond or click on the viral link, terming the viral link as “fake and misleading”.
NEC cautions: “There is a Fake Account, with a LINK at the bottom, purporting that the NEC is presently carrying out recruitment of ad hoc staff for the elections. This is fake and misleading. Please do not respond to it or click on the link!!!”
We also carefully analysed the URL and found that it is different from the URL or website address of the NEC. The purported website carries an URL that reads https//jobs.necliberi.org.programagency.
However, the authentic or real website of NE has this URL: https://www.necliberia.org/.
To further distinguish the fake URL from the NEC’s URL, we also review the job vacancy page of NEC which reads, https://www.necliberia.org/view_vacancies.php. This URL varies from the fake link which carries https//jobs.necliberi.org.programagency.
Conclusion
Based on the above evidence, we conclude that the viral claim claiming that NEC has ad hoc job vaccines for the pending 2023 elections is misleading.
Meanwhile, please note that the spread of fake links is fast becoming popular in recent weeks in Liberia amidst the globalization of digital technology and the introduction of online tools and social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, TikTok, Snap Chart, and many others.
But there are steps that you can take to keep yourself safe and far away from being a victim of internet scammers who share fake links purporting to be offering opportunities and or free gifts.
Please read this explainer to learn more about how to identify fake URL or website links.
