Court To Rule If There Will Be Use Of Digital Or Manual Register During August Elections

This Thursday, the High Court will make a decision on whether or not the IEBC will use the KIEMS kit as the exclusive method of voter identification in the August elections.

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission’s (IEBC) decision to employ the KIEMS kit has come under fire from a number of lobbying organizations.

The petitioners contend that the technology is prone to malfunction and that depending on it could result in some voters losing their right to vote if the kits do not function.

The attorneys for IEBC disagreed, claiming that the commission acted legally in making its decision and that only IEBC has the authority to approve the deployment of a printed register.

The seven lobby organizations have petitioned the court to require the IEBC to furnish a manual voter registration at each polling place.

Hussein Marjan, CEO of the IEBC, stated in early July that a manual register will only be used when three distinct KIEMS Kits are unable to identify a voter.

“If you turn up and for some reason, we are not able to identify you it says we replace the kit, once we replace the kit it will function normally if it refuses, we have a third kit and if that is not working that is when we can resort to a manual register,” Marjan said on Thursday.
According to the IEBC, it is adhering to a judgment made by Kenya’s Appellate Court in 2017 that stated the Digital Register is the main register to be used at the polls.

The decision also said that in the event the KIEMS Kit technology fails, a manual register created from the digital register will be used, according to the IEBC.