Run-off election: Over 50% of votes counted and tallied

By Our Reporter

The National Electoral Commission in Freetown, Sierra Leone has announced today that over 50% of the votes in the run-off election of September 8, 2007 have been counted and tallied. NEC boss Christiana Thorpe(pictured) who made the announcement however cautioned that the process is still ongoing as the votes of over three thousand polling stations still need to be counted and tallied. We bring you below Thorpe’s statement:

National Electoral Commission (NEC)
15 Industrial Estates, Wellington, Freetown, Sierra Leone

Statement from NEC Chairperson

NEC Statement to the Media - 12 September 2007

As announced, today the NEC is ready to present additional progressive results of the presidential run-off elections. We continue to make progress while conducting all the necessary checks and verifications that will allow for timely certification of the results. We are also looking into the complaints and reports of irregularities. I trust that by now the Commission has received all the complaints from polling day.

Notes on results

· Today we are presenting results from all 14 districts.

· 3,129 polling station results have now been entered into the results database. This represents 50.8% of all polling stations across the country. Please note that there are still 3,028 polling stations pending.

· The average national turnout is currently 72.4%.

· There are 23,935 invalid votes, representing 2.4% of total votes cast.

· Tomorrow you will have progressive cumulative results with all the new official results added to today’s total.

· The detailed results, by station and by centre, will be posted on the NEC website immediately after this press conference: www.necsierraleone.org.

· Our next press conference will be tomorrow, Thursday 13 September, here at the
NEC media centre at 6:00 pm.

Christiana Thorpe, Chairperson, National Electoral Commission.

Editor’s note: Here is a summary of today’s results from NEC:

Presidential Elections Results by District
Kailahun
Ernest Koroma(APC)—10,036
Solomon Berewa(SLPP)—32,241

Kenema
Koroma—22,702
Berewa—71,016

Kono
Koroma—39,416
Berewa—45,726

Bombali
Koroma—66,435
Berewa—8,201

Kambia
Koroma—36,240
Berewa—10,300