IEBC: Elections will be credible
The electoral commission has assured Kenyans that the August 8 general Election will be credible.
Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) chief executive officer Ezra Chiloba said on Tuesday that the agency will use technology as one way of ensuring the elections are free and fair.
According to him, already, infrastructure is ready.
He was speaking during the launch of the JIACTIVATE youth declaration — a social movement by and for the youth — at Kenyatta International Conventional Centre (KICC.
45,000 GADGETS
Mr Chiiloba said that they will deploy 45,000 election gadgets in the 40,883 polling stations across the country in a bid to have an effective election.
“The most outstanding thing in the coming election is the role of technology as 45,000 gadgets will be deployed,” said Mr Chiloba.
Mr Chiloba told the youth to sign a declaration that is meant to call on presidential candidates to include young people in decision and policy making that IEBC was ready to deliver credible elections.
He said that no polling station will have more than 700 voters to ensure efficiency.
DEAD VOTERS
He added that it would be impossible to have the deceased voting as the electronic gadgets allows a person to present themselves at the polling station.
“With that technology, the primary means of identifying voters is by showing up as a person and it is the only way of weeding out ghost voters because of the systems we have put in place,” said Mr Chiloba.
On transmission of results, he said that the same technology will be used citing network challenge as the only setback they foresee.
He said that a recent survey showed that the country is covered by 78 per cent 3G internet but they have explored other technology like use of satellite to ensure efficiency.
Mr Chiloba said that the results will be transmitted both by text as well as a scanned copy of the read results from the polling station to tallying centres.
“At the end of voting the results are expected to be transmitted the same way through technology from polling station to the tallying centre through a text message and also images of the form,” said Mr Chiloba.
