Liberia Supreme Court dismisses voter fraud allegations, approves run-off

Dec. 7 (UPI) -- Liberia's Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that there wasn't enough evidence to substantiate voting fraud claims in its recent presidential election and approved a second round run-off between ex-soccer star George Weah and Vice-President Joseph Boakai.

Justice Philip Banks said the judges found some evidence of irregularities, but not enough to hold another election altogether and the run-off between the top two candidates will go on as originally planned.

"For there to be such a massive turnaround in the entire electoral process, the appellants are under a legal obligation to show that these activities occurred not just at a few isolated centers, but that they occurred at most, or all of the polling places," he said, according to Bloomberg.

The decision effectively ends the presidential bid of the Liberty Party's Charles Brumskine, who finished third when voting was held in November with 10 percent of the vote count. Weah won 38 percent and Boakai won 29 percent.

But Brumskine said voting fraud was rampant and filed his case to the Supreme Court last month, leading to a halt in the planned run-off.

Four of the five judges on the Supreme Court voted to have the run-off. The lone dissenter, Justice Kabineh M. Ja'neh, said there was enough evidence of fraud and that his colleagues were ignoring them, Africa News reported.

The date of the run-off has not yet been scheduled.