IEBC to audit results before declaring winner

The electoral commission has announced it is auditing election results from 11 constituencies following a complaint by the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).

Chief Executive Officer of the commission, Mr James Oswago told a media briefing that an audit would be conducted before the final tabulation can be used to declare the final election results.

“There may have been errors and discrepancies here and there. Some we have already detected and we are working on them,” said Mr Oswago.

The chairman of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), Mr Issack Hassan told Nation.co.ke that he had received a complaint from ODM secretary general Prof Anyang' Nyo'ng'o claiming that returns from the 11 constituencies were inaccurate.

"The complaint was that in the named constituencies votes for Mr Odinga were scaled down while Mr [Uhuru] Kenyatta was given more votes than what he got," said Mr Hassan.

He said a commissioner had been tasked to look into the complaint.

The constituencies whose results the party claimed had issues include Kitui South, Kubuachai, Changamwe, Kanduyi, Homa Bay, Ganze, Vihiga, Khamisi, Magarini, Kitutu Chache, and Mumias East.

Mr Odinga had scored 281,611 in the 11 constituencies while Mr Kenyatta had garnered 25,863. Cord argued that the results were not captured in the tallying screen.

If included in the final tally Mr Odinga could narrow the gap between him and his main rival Kenyatta who had opened a 600,000 margin in the Presidential race.

With results from 250 constituencies counted, Uhuru Kenyatta is still leading with 5,453,347 votes against Raila Odinga's 4,732,129 votes.

Mr Oswago said that the commission had set up a team to verify the results before announcement.

“The most important is to put in place mechanisms where if mistakes occur they can be detected and dealt with,” Mr Oswago said.

Another discrepancy detected was that the number of votes garnered by candidate and the rejected votes did not add up to the number given for total votes cast.

Mr Issack called a meeting with chief agents of the Presidential candidates to discuss the concerns over tallying and relaying of results. Agents representing Mr Kenyatta also attended the meeting called by Mr Hassan at Bomas.

“The Presidential agents are free to come to my office any time to discuss any problem with me. This is a transparent process and the results that we have received are credible,” he said.

Said Mr Hassan: “There may have been errors but we will deal with those problems and announce the correct figures when we make the final decision”

All returning officers including one from Endebes and Mathare who had not arrived at the tallying center had arrived and there were over 30 constituencies whose results were still being screened.