By Beauttah Omanga

As Kenyans troop to polling stations to vote on the Proposed Constitution next month, more than 49,000 eligible voters will miss out.

The voters’ names were struck out of the Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC) register for registering more than once.

After the verification, 12,470,433 Kenyans were found to be fit to participate in the referendum scheduled for August 4, a day IIEC wants the President to declare a public holiday.

Yesterday, IIEC asked police to arrest the 49,120 Kenyans who registered more than once.

"We are in the process of building a register for persons who attempted to register more than once to ensure that they are not only prevented from voting, but also punished for breaking the law," said IIEC Chairman Hassan Issack.

Mr Issack said of the blacklisted voters, 1,717 registered through electronic voters’ register while the rest committed the offence manually.

The chairman did not, however, disclose the worst affected regions, only saying the highest two were recorded in Kisumu Town West constituency, where a voter registered 11 times, followed by one in Mombasa, whose details were captured a new eight times.

The chairman, in the company of other commissioners, said of those registered, 51.25 per cent were male. Women added up to 48.75 per cent.

The oldest Kenyan to be registered was Nakuru town’s Alice Muthoni Mwangi, 119, whose details indicated she was born on May 18, 1891. The oldest male voter, according to the IIEC records, is Simeon Waweru Maina, 118, who was registered at Kamukunji constituency.

Issack said at least 136,898 voters had their detected errors corrected and would be participating.

None of those whose names were found with errors will be barred from voting.

"Some of the mistakes were committed by our staff and they have since been rectified," he said.