Nasa new demands to IEBC

The opposition coalition National Super Alliance (Nasa) now wants the electoral body to zone and distribute polling stations equally among the three leading mobile and data operators.

Nasa says this would guarantee the required quality, speed, and precision of presidential election results transmission.

The zoning and distribution should recognise the 3G reach of each of the service providers — namely Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom Kenya — Musalia Mudavadi, the chairman of the Nasa National Campaign Committee, states in a letter to the electoral body.

“The National Super Alliance is aware that 3G network is the technology that has the capacity to transmit results with the required quality, speed, and precision expected by the voters during the election period.

"However, NASA is also aware that only 15 per cent of the country’s land mass has 3G signal coverage, translating to just a handful of polling stations located in the areas covered by 3G network,” states Mr Mudavadi’s May 17 letter to Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) chief executive Ezra Chiloba.

TRANSMISSION

It is on the basis that none of the three service providers has universal 3G reach that Nasa wants the IEBC to zone the country.

Besides zoning, the opposition alliance wants the three service providers to commit to deploying a hybrid of technologies to deliver all-round electronic transmission of results.

Furthermore, the opposition alliance is asking the IEBC to involve and seek input from key stakeholders in the electoral process, particularly political parties with presidential nominees.

“Nasa wishes to bring to the attention of the commission the looming danger of not achieving electronic transmission as required by law,” says Mr Mudavadi.

Nasa’s demands seem to have been informed by lessons from the 2013 elections when the technology collapsed and the IEBC resorted to manual transmission of results from across the country.

HACKING

The collapse of the technology delayed the declaration of the presidential election results from the March 3 election day to March 10, when IEBC declared then TNA candidate Uhuru Kenyatta the winner.

Nasa’s demands do not stop with urging the IEBC to consult the parties. It is also calling on the electoral body to apply to the Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK) for allocation of numbers unique to each zone. Each zone, Mr Mudavadi says, should have its own mobile destination code.

The opposition alliance is also asking that each of the 41,000 polling stations be allocated only one number.

“All mobile network providers must in their contracts clearly state that no more than one SIM card shall be provided for the same number.

"Mobile operators should (also) guarantee and provide to IEBC more encryption in the SIM card software that will protect it from hacking,” the letter states.

Furthermore, Nasa wants the IEBC to ensure that all devices used for transmitting results have their International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) associated with the SIM card number for every polling station and are registered.