Mr. Marjan believes the use of biometric identification during elections will mitigate the risk of illegitimate voters.
IEBC Boss Chebukati emphasizes that the commission will paste the hard copy of the register in each of the polling stations, seven days before August 9 for purposes of verification by voters.
Mr. Chebukati hints at the assurance of convenience and efficiency in this year’s elections through the digitalization of the voting system.
The move comes after the rejection of the physical register for opting for voter identification electronically as the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission sealed the final voters’ rollout with 22.12 million eligible registered voters.
Choice of the digital register is aimed at curbing the malpractices witnessed in the 2017 elections; multiple voting, infiltration of Kiems (elections technology) kits, abnormal turnouts, and collusion by electoral officers in unethical acts.
The need for assurance comes from stakeholders including aspirants of Azimio and Kenya Kwanza after raising concerns about the integrity of the voters’ register, lack of a backup, or complementary system in case of technology failure, and measures in place to cater to challenges.
Mr. Chebukati, IEBC Boss, “the digital register would prevent malpractices as well as any sabotage that was witnessed before. physical register allowed some rogue IEBC officers to manipulate the register either by deleting names of voters or loading names of those who have not voted, to vote for others. The final register has 22,120,458 voters and that is the number of registered voters who will participate in 2022 polls.”
IEBC Chief Executive Marjan Hussein Marjan, “use of the digital register will only allow legitimate voting while easily identifying any illegitimate voting. As for technology failure, the Kiems kits will have four backup kits in each of the 1,450 wards. Since the electoral agency has 58,100 kits ready for use in the 46,232 polling stations that will be used in the August election.”
There will be a use of sim cards connected to the mobile network through GSM and are easy to replace in case of any failure and the lost time compensated for.
