IEBC to use forms to verify results after Nasa protest

The electoral commission has begun a physical verification of the results using the forms filed by its officers at the polling stations and constituency tallying centres following claims that its systems have been hacked.

This came as President Uhuru Kenyatta’s votes rose to 7,977,905 votes which  account for 54.32 per cent of the total vote count against Nasa’s Raila Odinga who had scored 6,578,586 votes (44.79 per cent) after  39, 437 out of 40,883 polling stations had been counted.

IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati said the results available on its portal, which are also on display at the national tallying centre at Bomas of Kenya, are not final.

“Aspersions have been cast on the result transmission by some of our stakeholders. We would want to state that the results on the screen are not the official results,” Mr Chebukati said at a press conference.

This comes after Nasa presidential candidate Raila Odinga questioned the authenticity of the results IEBC has been streaming since Tuesday evening when the polls officially closed.

PRESIDENTIAL RESULTS

The Nation understands that the commission will also be making reference to Form 34As which are the official presidential results declaration forms at the polling stations.

From the Form 34As, which come from the polling stations and 34Bs from the constituency tallying centres, the commission says it will generate Form 34C which collates results for each candidate from all the 290 constituencies.

Form 34C is also the one that IEBC will use to declare the results, which by law should done by August 15, or seven days from the date of the elections.

The commission has invited all the agents of the eight presidential candidates to participate in the exercise right on the floor of the Bomas of Kenya.

In addition, the commission started uploading the results declaration forms on its public portal for any interested party to access and verify.

The IEBC statement came after the opposition Nasa had alleged that the results transmission had been hacked and interfered with to give  President Kenyatta an advantage.

INVESTIGATION

Mr Chebukati said they were investigating the matter. “If there are such claims we are looking into them. We had a system that has carried us all through and it has worked but there have been concerns raised and these cannot be ignored,” he said.

However, IEBC chief executive officer Ezra Chiloba appeared to contradict Mr Chebukati when he said that the figures broadcast were official as they were based on the statutory results declaration forms which have been condensed into text format since uploading the forms was tedious.

In Nakuru, deputy returning officer in Njoro constituency Hillary Ngeno ordered the immediate arrest of the presiding officer at Ngwataniro polling station who went missing early yesterday morning, delaying transmission of results from the constituency.

The presiding officer and his deputy could not be traced yet they had not submitted the required documentation for the results as required.

Mr Ngeno asked the area OCPD to track the officer down and have him arrested.

Tallying of votes in many polling stations across Nakuru, Narok, Nyandarua, Laikipia and Samburu counties went on throughout the day and extended into the night in some areas.

VOTE TALLYING

At Naivasha Boarding Primary School, tallying was expected to extend late into the night with a high number of ballot boxes yet to be tallied by Wednesday evening.

Naivasha constituency returning officer David Mbui admitted it would be a herculean task to finish the tallying of votes before night fall.

In Nyandarua, county elections manager Gideon Balang had by midday not received any official results from constituency returning officers.

Only total tallies were periodically reflecting at the county tally centre at ACK church hall in Ol Kalou town.

In Kuresoi South, there was tension at the constituency tallying centre yesterday morning following delays in tallying.

In Kirinyaga, vote tallying  in Ndia Constituency went on for more than 15 hours with electoral officials blaming the long process on delays in transportation of ballot materials from polling stations to the tallying centre at Baricho Boys School.

 — Reports by Walter Menya, Justus Wanga , Eric Matara, Macharia Mwangi, Waikwa Maina, Steve Njuguna, Francis Mureithi, Eric Matara, Joseph Openda, Reitz Mureithi, George Sayagie, Hilda Anyango, Macharia Mwangi, Magdalene Wanja, Peter Mburu, Sila Kiplagat, John Njoroge, Marion Wambui, Nicholas Komu and Godfrey Oundoh