EU Observers at a Polling station in Sierra Leone/ EU

By Winnie Kamau

With less than a week to go to the Run-Off the Sierra Leone National Elections looks like all the pots of the National Election Commission (NEC) are cooking very fast and some fires have to be put off.

One of the fires that have kept the people of Salone wondering how did technology have an impact on their recent close polls, The Blockchain technology.

A Swiss-based startup company has been claiming that they used Blockchain Technology to conduct the Elections of Sierra Leone. In the widely report coverage it got and statements sent to Newsrooms, Agora boasts of how they are the first to conduct Blockchain elections in Africa and in the world.

But NEC has come out strongly denying the claims made by the Swiss startup company in a digital way through Twitter saying

#NEC Chair Mohamed Conteh makes clear that “the NEC has not used, and is not using #blockchain #technology in any part of the electoral process.” #votesalone

In turn, NEC has defended itself saying that they used an in-house database to tally their elections which was developed in 2012 and expanded in 2018. They say the database was developed on C++ language and runs on MS SQL which is not an open source as claimed by Agora.

But Agora on their Twitter handles they have maintained they allegedly conducted Blockchain voting in one of the Western Districts of Sierra Leone.

NEC has also condemned spates of violence that have been witnessed in various parts of the country including Bo city where one of their Electoral staff was attacked and currently undergoing treatment.

Sierra Leone is expected to conduct the Run-Off Elections on 27th of March between the two leading parties Sierra Leone’s Peoples Party (SLPP) and All Peoples Congress (APC) who according to the constitution failed to attain the 55% from the valid votes cast.

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