The vote is an attempt to find a lasting political solution to nearly a decade of internal conflict in the once stable West African nation, but voter registration issues have prompted Ivory Coast to push back the election several times since President Laurent Gbagbo's mandate ran out in 2005.

Questions of nationality were at the heart of the civil war in 2002 and remain sensitive in Ivory Coast, which has a large immigrant population. Observers say recent political stalemate demonstrates just how far the country is from resolving the questions of "Who is Ivorian?" and "Who can vote?"

Last week, mounting frustration erupted into violent protests outside courthouses around the country, first in Katiola and Divo, where one police officer was killed, and finally in Man, near the Liberian border, on Friday. Thousands of people there stormed the courthouse, accusing the magistrate of trying to strike them from the voter list.

The former rebel faction in the North, the New Forces, had released a statement earlier denouncing what they called attempts to remove northerners from the provisional voter rolls, by questioning their nationality without proof. They cautioned against the "unpredictable consequences these attempts to strip people of their nationality could provoke."

Justice Minister Mamadou Koné has not only condemned the outbreaks of violence, but also called for local magistrates to follow proper legal protocol when seeking to remove people from the voter rolls. State security forces prevented him from reading his statement on national television.