Activist wants IEBC to clean polls register as mass voter registration begins

Activist Ndung’u Wainaina wants the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to clean the current voter register as mass voter registration kicks off.

Wanaina, who is the Executive Director of the International Centre for Policy and Conflict (ICPC), claims KMPG did audit of the registers of voters prior to the 2022 general elections and established some inconsistencies.

According to the audit report, there were duplicate records totalling 481,711, and voters said to have registered with identity cards which do not belong to them, who totalled 226,143.

A total of 246,465 records of deceased voters were also picked, and another 164,269 registrations were linked to invalid registration documents (IDs and Passports), among other issues.

The activist now wants IEBC to cancel the tender issued to Smartmatic for election technology management as part of building trust in the agency and cleaning up the poll register.

He says IEBC must issue a fresh tender for the acquisition of Integrated election management technology and that the procurement must meet the constitutional and procurement transparency threshold, including involvement of all stakeholders.

“No voter biometrics registration should be done with the KIEMS kits provided by Smartmatic. Smartmatic has supplied the IEBC with critical election technology, including biometric voter registration systems, KIEMS kits for voter identification, and results transmission infrastructure. The kits and technology must be discarded, and new kits must be acquired afresh,” Wainaina says.

In a statement dated March 30, the activist says IEBC must develop and provide a time-bound roadmap and milestones on election preparedness, with each milestone being specific on what ought to have been done and report on the status.

“All voter registration must be polling station-based. Each polling station must have a special code. Voters' data safety and security at each polling station must be guaranteed. The voters' identification kits must be foolproof to deter any sharing of data.”

He urged the Parliamentary Legal and Justice Committee to immediately summon IEBC to provide details of the election preparations, any electoral reforms needed, and the governance structure of the Commission, including its secretariat staff recruitment status.

He demanded that IEBC must ensure that, as per the Constitution, the High Court and Court of Appeal, the final presidential election results shall be announced at the constituency by the returning officer after collating the final polling station results.

“There shall be no Bomas or other such centre to purport to announce presidential results,” Wainaina said.

He added, “IEBC must make regulations to give media full access to final results announced at both polling stations and Constituency tallying centre in real-time, including giving them the right to project winners of those centres. This is in exercise of principles of participation, transparency and accountability.”