Presidential ballot papers to arrive Monday

The printing of ballot papers for the presidential election will end Thursday in Dubai, 11 days to the date of the General Election.

The papers will be transported to Nairobi on July 31 and August 1 in two chartered cargo planes.

Papers for the first 30 counties will be in one plane and counties number 31 to 47 in another plane.

The papers for each county will be packed together, with those for each constituency then packed in a labelled pallet.

SHIPPING

Another plane will deliver the last batch of ballot papers for the Members of County Assemblies on July 31.

"We have done 95 per cent of the work," said Lakshmanan Ganapathy, General Manager at Al Ghurair Printing and Publishing.

He said the IEBC issued the instructions for the printing to go ahead after the judgement by the Court of Appeal cleared the way for it to go ahead.

Mr Ganapathy said the company bought 1,200 tons of security paper, which is different from the normal bond paper, for the ballot papers for the Kenyan election.

He said the papers "are hard to produce for a printer with no security printing experience."

Mr Ganapathy told a team from the electoral commission, observers, presidential candidates and the media that the company has printed one per cent more ballot papers than the registered voters.

SPOILT BALLOT

This is to cater for instances where a voter spoils their ballot paper before putting it in the box and requires a replacement.

IEBC Commissioner Paul Kurgat said this is in line with the Election Regulations, which allow a voter the chance to replace their ballot paper if it is spoilt before casting.

Rosemary Akombe, a commissioner, said the provision is made to avoid printing too many ballot papers.

The representatives of the presidential candidates were generally pleased with the preparations.

"It is interesting that the issues we wanted clarified are being clarified," said Nasa representative Geoffrey Osotsi.

"As someone who has been at De La Rue a couple of times, these guys have the capacity," said Muthiora Kariara, Dr Japhet Kavinga Kaluyu