The voters who cast rejected votes could have picked governor and woman rep, too

Nearly 400,000 voters who stood in queues for hours around the country to cast their ballots in the Tuesday elections for President wanted no part in it.

That is roughly 10 votes in every polling station.

By the time of filing this column, the number of rejected votes in the presidential election stood at 397,200, according to results on the official website of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.

That number improves on 137,504 identified as rejected votes in the 2013 presidential election – before the IEBC discontinued electronic transmission of results, reportedly corrected the error on the server and posted the new total for rejected votes as 108,975.

Previously, the demon of rejected votes had entered the ballot times during the 2007 presidential election and left its mark 137,504 times, in which the margin between candidates Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga was a mere 231,728 votes.

Remarkably the 2005 referendum on the constitution recorded zero rejected votes while the 2010 referendum had 219,138.

PRESIDENTIAL COUNT

Observing this year’s election from when the polls opened just after 6.09 am to when the count for the presidential count was concluded in one of the polling stations in Nairobi provided a vista into what those rejected votes contained.

On Tuesday, the country’s democracy was put through its exercise paces.

A number of voters found that their names were not in the electronic register, or if they were, they needed to travel a few hundred kilometres to cast their ballots.

Among those who found their names on the roll were individuals who chose novel ways of expressing their opinions, but their intent was always clear.

One ballot paper was completely unmarked, even though it had been cast in the correct ballot box.

Another had all the scissor mark in the box adjacent to each of the eight candidates, but added the name of John Donald Trump aka DJT, and proceeded to tick in the space adjacent.

ELABORAATELY FILLED

Yet another was elaborately filled out with the words, “No, No, No, Never, No, No” until the end.

Other voters were picky: they gave both Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga the scissor.

These are the people who were, obviously, either illiterate or unreached by the various efforts at civic education conducted by the IEBC through sleek advertisements on television.

It was clear that you cannot help some people.

Fringe presidential candidates, such as former Cabinet ministers Joseph Nyaga, Shakhalaga khwa Jirongo, constitutional review experts boss Ekuru Aukot and university dons Japheth Kaluyu and Michael Wainaina as well as high school teacher Abduba Dida had, according to the unofficial IEBC results, attracted a combined total of 130,961 votes.

COMPUTER BUGS

Mwalimu Dida’s numbers appeared to be a far cry from his 52,848 votes in 2013, but it is early days yet.

Barring errors arising from the interference of computer bugs or the counting interfering with sleep, the so-called undecided voters identified earlier in opinion polls seem to have showed up at the polling centres wearing their apathy, disinterest and disgust.

Viewed together, the rejected votes and those cast for the so-called fringe candidates single out a constituency of dissatisfied Kenyans constituting 2.6 per cent of the electorate.

If these unhappy people were organised, they would have commandeered a county and elected a governor, a senator and a woman representative to the National Assembly, complete with a host of members of the county assembly.

There are individuals who will occupy those positions with far fewer votes. Since there is little or no opportunity for them to be incorporated in the country’s politics, they should be allowed to nominate their representation.

 The writer is a Programme Advisor, Journalists for Justice. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect those of JFJ. [email protected]