Vote recount shows anomalies- lawyers

Prime Minister Raila Odinga and the civil society have said the re-tallying of votes show discrepancies in the presidential results as declared by the electoral commission.

Mr Odinga's lawyer George Oraro told the Supreme Court that Forms 36 contain "grave errors".

"There are huge discrepancies in Forms 36 used in tallying final results," said Mr Oraro Friday.

"The re-tallying shows there was addition of 6,139 votes and a subtraction of 12, 530 votes when figures are tallied," he said.

He was responding to the report of the scrutiny of results from 22 polling stations ordered by the Supreme Court.

Lawyer Kethi Kilonzo for the Africa Centre for Open Governance (Africog) said, according to the report, Forms 34 were missing in 10 constituencies.

She said that in Laikipia West constituency, it was not possible to verify the number of votes cast.

Ms Kilonzo said president-elect Uhuru Kenyatta got 76,760 votes, yet this could not be verified.

She said the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission chairman Issack Hassan announced the final results prematurely.

"The Returning Officer of the presidential election (Mr Hassan) made the final announcement without all the results," she said.

According to the report, these are: Kilifi North, Kapenguria, Loima, Magarini, Matuga, Narok West, Kuresoi South, Likuyani, Kabondo Kasipul, Mwingi North.

However, IEBC said all Forms 34 were available on its website.

Aggregate results of Form 36 registered voters from 75 constituencies were missing, the report says.

For instance, in Mvita constituency there was no aggregate provided for votes cast. In Ganze, there were two Forms 36. In Githunguri, the two Forms 36 indicated different numbers of votes cast. In Malava, the Form 36 was incomplete.

In rebuttal, IEBC lawyer Nani Mungai said the commission had responded to the the discrepancies.

"We provided thousands of green books for scrutiny to address the allegations of having more votes that registered voters," he told the judges.

He said there was "no mischief at all" on the part of the IEBC in conducting the General Election.

Mr Kenyatta's counsel Fred Ngatia conceded there were "clerical errors" but maintained this could not affect the final results.

"There may have been clerical errors here and there but no mischief can be attributed to this at all," he said.

He said that in Mugumoini polling station, the wrong Form 36 was used in the re-tallying of votes.

Lawyer Katwa Kigen for Mr Ruto said the scrutiny does not point to any wrongdoing on IEBC's part.

He said the "errors and oversights are expected in any human endeavours".

Form 34 is a legal document that shows the votes obtained by each of the candidates at a polling centre, and the contenders’ agents are required to sign it after establishing that the results are accurate before it is forwarded to the national tallying centre.

Form 35 shows the results for governors, senators, county and women’s representatives while Form 36 gives a summary of the votes obtained by all candidates in constituencies.