19 four; (v) at a polling center in Lofa County, a Liberty party poll watcher was tied, beaten and bruised by a police officer on the instructions of the presiding officer because the poll watcher had continuously raised issue of counting irregularities; (vi) two persons were seen in a body of water with sealed ballot boxes on their heads; (vii) certain individuals were seen in a canoe carrying ballot boxes unaccompanied by any police officer; (viii) at a particular polling center, ballots were cast in a bath tub; (ix) at a polling center, ballots were cast in a carton box instead of a sealed ballot box; (x) that because 88,400 votes, constituting 5.4% of total votes, were declared as invalid, this significantly impacted the election results; (xi) that independent and credible elections observers basically agreed or admitted to deficiencies in the elections on polling day; (xii) that although the NEC had quarantined 14 ballot boxes and which therefore had not yet been counted, the NEC proceeded to announce the final results of the elections; and that given all of the above, the October 10, 2017 elections had failed to meet the minimum standards required for free, fair and transparent elections. The foregoing was the case set forth by the complainants in the complaint filed with the NEC. The Chairman of the NEC, upon the NEC’s receipt of the complaint, forwarded same to the Chief Dispute Hearing Officer (CDHO) for investigation. The records do not show that the NEC, against whom the complaint had been lodged, filed any returns or answer to the allegations levied in the complaint. What the records do reveal is that the CDHO, upon receiving the complaint and directive of the Chairman of the NEC, proceeded, on October 24, 2017, to cite the complainants to appear on October 27, 2017, for commencement of the investigation into the complaint. It is worth noting that although the complainants had prayed that the run-off election announced by the NEC to occur on November 7, 2017, be postponed until ruling was made on the complaint by the NEC, the latter made no response to the prayer. Instead, the investigation was commenced on October 27, 2017, as scheduled, with the production of oral, written and electronic evidence seeking to substantiate the allegations made in the complaint. Thus, even while the complaint into the allegations of violations by the NEC of the Constitution, Elections Law and Elections regulations and guidelines, fraud and