Read time: 3 minutes

Confusion over numbers mars Kenya's election re-run

Kenya , 30 Oct 2017

Confusion over numbers mars Kenya's election re-run

Kenya's Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) continues to announce results of the country's presidential election re-run on 26 October amid concern over the data transmitted by the election tech kits.

The Kenya Integrated Election Management System (KIEMS) kits are under scrutiny after the Commission was unable to verify how many people had voted by the end of the poll.

In their initial announcement over twitter, the commission said the voter turnout was at 48%, but this changed as additional results streamed in.

The KIEMS kits are designed to identify voters based on biometric technology and record the voter turnout.

Two days after the poll, there was no confirmation from officials of voter registration statistics.

The IEBC issued a statement yesterday evening which read: "The total number of voters authenticated using the 36,882 KIEMS kit and validated based on the logs received are 7,573,903. The logs electronically transmitted on the KIEMS kits do not include voters identified manually on the printed register."

However, there is little agreement around voter turnout.

According to the official opposition (which boycotted participation in the elections) the KIEMS kit only identified 3.5 million voters on 26 October. However, this had not yet been substantiated.

In a rally held in Nairobi, the leader of the opposition described the latest results as "a sham" and its call to boycott the election was impacted by low voter turnout, with four counties not included in the voting process because of security concerns expressed by the IEBC.

Unlike the 8 August general election, the scanned copies of results were posted on the Commission's portal for public scrutiny. The KIEMS kit was also used to transmit the digital copies.

It remains to be seen whether or not the latest results will be challenged in court, given the controversy over voter turnout.

Daily newsletter